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UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL 
ADDRESSES 


DELIVERED   DURING   A   RESIDENCE    IN   THE 

UNITED   STATES  AS  AMBASSADOR 

OF    GREAT   BRITAIN 


Nefo  fforfc 

THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1913 

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COPYRIGHT,  1913, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  May,  1913. 


Nortnocti 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


ELIHU    ROOT 

IN    ADMIRATION    AND    FRIENDSHIP 


PREFACE 

DURING  six  years  spent  in  Washington  it  has 
been  my  duty,  and  also  my  pleasure,  to  travel  hither 
and  thither  over  the  United  States,  responding, 
so  far  as  time  and  strength  permitted,  to  requests 
to  address  Universities,  Bar  Associations,  Chambers 
of  Commerce,  and  many  other  public  organizations 
of  diverse  kinds.  Out  of  the  many  addresses  deliv- 
ered either  to  these  bodies  or  in  commemoration 
of  some  person  or  event,  I  have  selected  a  few, 
the  subjects  of  which  seemed  to  possess  a  more 
than  passing  interest,  and  of  which  I  had  happened 
to  keep  notes,  enabling  the  substance  to  be  re- 
produced. In  revising  them  for  publication  some 
additions  have  been  made,  while  matters  of  a  local 
or  purely  occasional  character  have  been  omitted. 
The  audiences  to  which  the  academic  addresses 
were  delivered  consisted  chiefly  of  undergraduate 
or  graduating  students. 

The  enjoyment  which  I  had  derived  from  my 
earlier  visits  to  the  United  States  was  renewed  and 
enhanced  by  the  warmth  with  which  I  found  myself 
received  and  by  the  encouragement  given  me  to 
speak  on  all  non-political  topics  as  freely  as  if  I  had 
been  a  citizen  of  the  United  States. 


viii  PREFACE 

I  desire  to  take  this  opportunity  of  returning  my 
sincere  thanks  to  those  who,  in  the  places  where 
these  addresses  were  delivered,  and  in  scores  of 
other  cities  which  I  have  visited  for  the  like  pur- 
pose, gave  me  that  encouragement,  and  extended  to 
me  a  welcome  the  heartiness  of  which  I  can  never 
forget. 

WASHINGTON, 
April  20, 1913. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  VIRGINIA i 

WHAT  UNIVERSITY  INSTRUCTION  MAY  DO  TO  PROVIDE  INTEL- 
LECTUAL PLEASURES  FOR  LATER  LIFE       .        .        .  15 
THE  LANDING  OF  THE  PILGRIMS  IN  1620  33 
THE  INFLUENCE  OF  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  AND  HISTORICAL 
ENVIRONMENT  ON   THE   DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COMMON 

LAW 41 

THE  CONDITIONS  AND  METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION    ...  73 
THOMAS  JEFFERSON  :  THIRD  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

AND  FOUNDER  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA       .        .107 

MISSIONS  PAST  AND  PRESENT 125 

THE  MISSION  OF  STATE  UNIVERSITIES 151 

THE  ART  OF  AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 171 

ARCHITECTURE  AND  HISTORY 181 

THE  CHARACTER  AND  CAREER  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN    .        .197 

THE  SCOTO-IRISH  RACE  IN  ULSTER  AND  IN  AMERICA     .        .  205 

WHAT  A  UNIVERSITY  MAY  DO  FOR  A  STATE    ....  227 

ALLEGIANCE  TO  HUMANITY 247 

THE  TERCENTENARY  OF  THE  DISCOVERY  OF  LAKE  CHAMPLAIN  265 

SOME  HINTS  ON  PUBLIC  SPEAKING 281 

SPECIAL  AND  GENERAL  EDUCATION  IN  UNIVERSITIES       .        .  299 

THE  STUDY  OF  ANCIENT  LITERATURE 317 

ON  THE  WRITING  AND  TEACHING  OF  HISTORY        .        .        .  339 

SOME  HINTS  ON  READING 365 

NATIONAL  PARKS  —  THE  NEED  OF  THE  FUTURE      .        .        .  389 

THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES    ....  407 


THE  BEGINNINGS   OF  VIRGINIA 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  JAMESTOWN  ISLAND,  VIRGINIA,  APRIL  17, 
1907,  ON  THE  TERCENTENARY  OF  THE  FIRST  ENGLISH  SETTLE- 
MENT IN  VIRGINIA. 


UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL 
ADDRESSES 

THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  VIRGINIA 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  JAMESTOWN  ISLAND,  VIRGINIA,  APRIL  17, 
1907,  ON  THE  TERCENTENARY  OF  THE  FIRST  ENGLISH  SETTLE- 
MENT IN  VIRGINIA. 

ON  this  day  three  hundred  years  ago  two  small  ships 
and  a  pinnace  coming  from  England  by  way  of  the 
Canary  Islands  and  the  West  Indies  anchored  here 
and  landed  their  passengers,  being  about  one  hundred 
and  twenty  persons  in  number,  upon  this  Island. 
They  came  from  London  under  a  charter  from  the 
King,  James  the  First  of  England  and  Sixth  of  Scotland, 
by  which  there  was  claimed  for  the  Crown  of  England 
the  whole  of  North  America  between  the  thirty-fourth 
and  forty-fifth  degrees  of  latitude,  being  the  territory 
then  called  Virginia.  In  the  London  which  these  set- 
tlers had  just  left,  Shakespeare  was  then  living.  Some 
of  them  may  have  seen  him,  perhaps  with  Ben  Jonson 
beside  him,  watching  the  first  performance  of  Hamlet 
four  or  five  years  before.  Sir  Francis  Bacon  —  the  one 
name  naturally  suggests  the  other  —  was  living,  though 
not  yet  Lord  Chancellor.  Some  of  the  emigrants  may 

3 


4          UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

have  heard  him  arguing  cases  in  the  courts.  John 
Milton  was  born  the  next  year;  Sir  Walter  Raleigh 
was  a  man  of  fifty-five  and  then  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower 
of  London ;  Sir  Philip  Sidney  had  been  killed  at  Zutphen 
in  1586  and  Edmund  Spenser  had  died  in  1599;  Pym 
was  a  youth  of  seventeen;  John  Hampden  a  boy  of 
seven ;  Oliver  Cromwell  a  boy  of  eight. 

The  England  of  those  famous  men  was  the  England 
whence  the  emigrants  came,  a  land  fitted  to  give 
birth  to  large  and  noble  enterprises.  Measured  by 
what  it  did  for  the  world,  it  was  a  great  England, 
with  great  poets,  great  thinkers,  and  strong  men  who 
did  great  deeds.  Never  before  and  never  since  has 
such  a  constellation  of  brilliant  and  memorable  names 
glittered  in  the  English  sky.  But  measured  by  popu- 
lation, England  was  a  little  nation,  though  her  states- 
men and  sailors  had  not  long  before  won  immortal 
fame  by  their  defeat  of  the  Invincible  Armada.  There 
were  only  some  five  million  inhabitants  in  the  country. 
Ireland  was  still  but  half  conquered,  and  Scotland, 
though  her  King  had  lately  inherited  the  English  throne, 
was  a  distinct  and  not  too  friendly  kingdom.  And 
the  settlers  were  few  indeed  to  venture  on  the  task  of 
occupying  the  vast  continent  on  which  they  were 
landing.  How  feeble  must  their  enterprise  have  seemed 
to  the  men  of  Spain,  which  held  not  only  Mexico  and 
the  immense  territories  north  of  Mexico,  but  also  the 
whole  of  South  America  and  all  the  Antilles  !  But 
God  had  chosen  the  weak  things  of  the  world  to  con- 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  VIRGINIA  5 

found  the  things  which  were  mighty,  and  the  things 
which  were  not  to  bring  to  nought  the  things  that  were. 
The  Empire  of  Spain  was  to  decay  and  dissolve  and 
vanish  away,  while  from  this  spot,  this  islet  two  miles 
long,  where  now  we  see  nothing  but  a  few  moulder- 
ing walls,  the  power  of  another  race  was  to  spread 
out  to  the  Alleghanies  and  beyond  them  to  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  thence  to  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the  far- 
off  coasts  of  the  Pacific.  The  oak  of  English  dominion 
on  the  continent  of  North  America  lay  hidden  hi  the 
acorn  that  was  planted  on  this  island  in  the  James 
River,  just  as  the  germ  of  English  dominion  in  the 
East  was  to  be  found  in  the  charter  that  had  been 
granted  by 'Queen  Elizabeth  to  the  East  India  Company 
seven  years  before  this  settlement. 

The  landing  of  these  few  men  was  one  of  the  great 
events  in  the  history  of  the  world  —  an  event  to  be  com- 
pared for  its  momentous  consequences  with  the  over- 
throw of  the  Persian  Empire^ by  Alexander;  with  the 
destruction  of  Carthage  by  Rome ;  with  the  conquest  of 
Gaul  by  Clovis ;  with  the  taking  of  Constantinople  by 
the  Turks  —  one  might  almost  say  with  the  discovery  of 
America  by  Columbus.  Did  any  idea  of  the  magni- 
tude of  this  event  rise  in  the  minds  of  the  little  band 
of  settlers  when  they  read  their  Royal  charter  on  board 
ship  before  landing;  or  when  they  held  their  first 
religious  service  and  set  to  the  building  of  their  fort, 
a  rude  stockade  called  after  the  King,  "James  Town," 
and  began  to  sow  their  fields  with  wheat,  and  build  that 


6          UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

tiny  church  which  the  pious  care  of  this  generation  is 
restoring  ?  There  is  nothing  to  show  that  they  had  any 
such  presentiments.  Many  a  settlement  tried  before 
upon  the  American  coasts  had  failed  since  the  half- 
mythic  and  by  that  time  long-forgotten  landing 
of  Erik  the  Red  in  the  far  Northeast ;  and  they  had 
other  things  than  the  distant  future  to  think  of,  for  the 
Spanish  power  to  the  south  of  them,  though  then  nomi- 
nally at  peace,  was  jealous  of  their  intrusion,  and  the 
Indians  around  them  were  suspicious  and  hostile.  But 
of  them  it  may  be  said  that  they,  and  those  who  sent 
them  forth  from  England,  had  the  true  spirit  of  practi- 
cal men  who  saw  the  opportunity  which  a  new  country 
offered  to  a  growing  people.  They  were  of  the  stuff 
which  makes  good  settlers,  and  they  did  that  which  the 
needs  of  the  time  required. 

All  the  dangers  and  difficulties  that  were  seen  or 
foreseen  they  overcame.  The  power  of  the  mother 
country  kept  them  safe  against  the  jealous  bitterness 
of  Spain.  They  soon  proved  themselves  able  to  repel 
any  attacks  from  the  native  Indians,  and  presently 
ceased  to  fear  these  enemies,  though  they  had  for  many 
years  to  stand  on  guard  against  them.  They  suffered 
so  severely  from  malarial  fevers,  for  in  those  days  the 
value  of  quinine  as  a  remedy  had  not  yet  become  known, 
that  after  ninety-three  years  the  colonial  legislature 
decided  to  remove  itself  from  James  Town  island  to 
Williamsburg,  eight  miles  to  the  northeast,  and  at  last, 
in  1780,  the  capital  of  Virginia  was  planted  on  the  higher 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  VIRGINIA  7 

and  healthier  ground  of  Richmond.  But  one  mis- 
take was  committed,  destined  to  breed  troubles  far 
worse  than  any  which  Indians  or  sickness  threatened. 
Twelve  years  after  the  first  settlement,  a  Dutch  ship 
landed  a  cargo  of  African  negroes,  the  first  that  ever 
came  into  the  dominions  of  the  English  Crown.  This 
step  —  a  step  taken  with  no  prevision  of  all  that  was 
to  issue  from  it,  and  one  for  which  the  colonists  them- 
selves were  not  to  blame  —  established  the  system  of 
agricultural  slave  labor  in  North  America,  a  system 
which  we  can  now  see  to  have  been,  apart  from  the 
other  objections  to  it,  uneconomic  and  unnecessary ;  for 
those  who  have  studied,  in  the  light  of  modern  science, 
the  physical  conditions  of  Virginia  and  the  country  south 
and  southwest  of  it,  tell  us  that  nearly  all  the  area  of  the 
States  in  which  slavery  existed  seventy  years  ago,  all,  in 
fact,  except  the  hottest  and  dampest  regions  along  the 
coast,  could  be  cultivated  by  the  labour  of  white  men. 
The  country  would,  no  doubt,  have  been  developed  more 
slowly,  but  there  would  have  been  no  Civil  War  and 
no  race  problems  such  as  now  occupy  your  thoughts. 
Let  it  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  Virginia  was  the 
first  community  in  the  world  to  recognize  the  evils 
which  the  slave  trade  brought  with  it.  Not  only  did 
she,  in  colonial  days,  seek  in  vain  to  check  or  abolish  it, 
but  in  1778,  in  the  first  years  of  her  independence,  when 
both  in  England  and  in  the  Northern  States  powerful 
interests  were  still  defending  and  supporting  the  slave 
trade,  she  absolutely  forbade  the  bringing  of  any  slaves 


8          UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

into  her  territory.  And  you  know  how  many  of 
the  greatest  Virginians,  George  Mason  and  Thomas 
Jefferson  among  them,  sought  to  rid  their  State  of 
slavery. 

Let  us,  however,  return  to  those  first  founders  of 
Virginia  whom  we  are  to-day  commemorating.  Of 
the  qualities  that  distinguished  them,  one,  the  spirit 
of  adventure,  was  common  to  them  with  many  others 
who  had  crossed  the  Western  Sea.  Think  of  Columbus 
when  he  first  showed  the  path  that  so  many  were  to 
follow ;  of  Magellan  when  he  threaded  his  way  through 
the  savage  solitudes  of  the  Strait  that  bears  his  name, 
and  traversed  week  after  week  and  month  after  month, 
with  a  crew  part  of  which  had  lately  been  in  mutiny 
against  him,  hard-pressed  by  thirst  and  hunger  and 
scurvy,  the  seemingly  boundless  wastes  of  the  unknown 
Pacific.  Think  of  Champlain  and  La  Salle  when  they 
found  their  way  among  fierce  Indian  tribes,  through  the 
Northern  forests  or  along  the  shores  of  the  Great  Lakes 
as  far  as  the  Mississippi.  For  mere  daring  and  self- 
reliant  hardihood  no  expedition  has  ever  surpassed,  if 
indeed  any  has  equalled,  that  of  Hernando  Cortez, 
when  after  burning  his  ships  he  marched  up  far  away 
from  the  coast  with  a  tiny  band  of  cavaliers  into  the 
heart  of  the  vast  and  warlike  dominion  of  the  Aztecs. 
But  there  was  another  quality  in  which  our  country- 
men and  your  forefathers  stood  preeminent.  They 
came  from  a  free  country,  though  its  freedom  had  not 
yet  been  placed  on  a  secure  foundation,  for  that  was 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  VIRGINIA  9 

to  be  the  work  of  the  century  that  had  just  begun  in 
England;  and  the  spirit  of  liberty  and  the  love  of 
self-government  glowed  in  their  hearts. 

Herein  lay  the  great  contrast  between  the  English  of 
that  day  and  the  not  less  valiant  adventurers  who  had 
already  gone  forth  from  Spain.  That  the  former  went 
to  cultivate  the  soil  and  the  latter  primarily  to  win  gold 
and  silver,  whether  by  conquest  or  by  the  discovery 
of  mines,  is  a  difference  that  has  often  been  dwelt 
upon.  But  the  future  fortunes  of  the  two  sets  of  emi- 
grants were  even  more  affected  by  the  difference  in 
their  political  temper  and  ideas.  The  Englishmen, 
though  loyal  to  their  sovereign  at  home,  were  not  dis- 
posed to  acquiesce  in  the  uncontrolled  rule  of  his 
deputies.  They  had  a  company  to  represent  in  Eng- 
land their  needs  and  wishes,  and  they  soon  set  up  in 
the  new  land  a  system  of  local  courts  and  assemblies, 
modelled  on  the  lines  and  principles  of  that  which  they 
had  left  behind.  They  valued  this  inherited  freedom, 
and  as  the  enjoyment  of  it  had  strengthened  the  charac- 
ter and  developed  the  independent  and  self-reliant  spirit 
of  the  individual  citizen  during  three  centuries  in 
England,  so  it  began  to  do  the  same  wholesome  work 
on  these  remote  and  silent  shores. 

Modern  writers  have  speculated  as  to  what  was 
the  cargo  that  these  three  vessels  carried.  Of  that  we 
know  less  than  we  could  wish.  Bibles  and  prayer- 
books  they  certainly  had,  for  they  were  God-fearing 
men,  and  one  of  their  prime  objects  was  "  the  planting 


io        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

of  Christianity  amongst  heathens."  Whether  they 
had  any  law  books  does  not  appear.  But  they  carried 
in  their  breasts  the  principles  and  traditions  of  the 
common  law  of  England,  which  of  all  the  legal  systems 
that  have  ever  been  framed  is  the  one  most  fully  per- 
vaded with  the  spirit  of  liberty  and  the  most  favorable 
to  the  development  of  personal  self-reliance  and  indi- 
vidual responsibility.  That  spirit  showed  itself  from 
the  first  among  the  colonists  of  Virginia.  They  soon 
organized  their  Assembly  and  began  to  govern  them- 
selves so  far  as  the  King  allowed  them.  They  were 
well  supported  by  the  Virginia  Company  in  London. 
Its  debates  and  the  liberal  tendencies  it  evinced  caused 
disquiet  to  the  Court  party  and  to  the  King,  whose 
shrewd  and  suspicious  mind  already  noted  the  rising 
of  the  wind  which  was  to  swell  thirty-three  years  later 
into  the  tempest  of  the  great  Civil  War. 

How  the  spirit  of  freedom  and  that  assertion  of 
individual  rights  which  the  doctrines  of  the  Common 
Law  favoured  went  on  working  through  the  annals  of 
colonial  Virginia  as  in  those  of  the  great  sister  and  rival 
colony  of  Massachusetts ;  how  the  same  spirit  prompted 
Virginia's  action  when  an  unwise  English  Ministry, 
ignorant  of  the  circumstances  and  feelings  of  the  colo- 
nists, blundered  into  a  conflict  which  ended  in  their 
severance  from  England;  how  the  greatest  of  all 
Virginians,  clarum  et  venerabile  nomen,  led  his  colony 
and  its  fellow  colonies  in  that  conflict ;  how  the  states- 
manship of  Virginia,  matured  by  the  experience  of 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  VIRGINIA  n 

nearly  two  centuries,  bore  its  part,  and  an  eminently 
useful  part  it  was,  in  framing  the  Constitution  of  1787, 
and  gave  to  the  Union  four  out  of  its  five  first  Presi- 
dents; how  one  of  Virginia's  most  illustrious  sons, 
Chief  Justice  Marshall,  so  expounded  and  developed  the 
Constitution  as  to  become  almost  its  second  author, 
-  of  all  this  I  must  not  here  and  now  attempt  to 
speak.  Sixty  years  ago  dark  days  descended  upon 
Virginia.  The  fatal  error  committed  in  early  years, 
from  the  consequences  of  which  Virginia  had  vainly 
sought  to  extricate  herself,  had  now  borne  fatal  fruit. 
War  came,  with  all  the  evils  that  war  brings 
in  its  train,  and  on  Virginia  those  evils  fell  more 
heavily  than  on  any  other  State.  Those  were  days  of 
unspeakable  sadness  and  suffering,  suffering  borne 
with  the  characteristic  gallantry  of  Virginians,  and 
they  produced  in  Robert  E.  Lee  one  of  the  finest 
characters  of  that  age,  a  man  whose  purity  of  heart 
and  loftiness  of  soul  live  in  the  revering  memory  not  of 
America  only  but  of  the  world  of  English-speaking  men. 
But  out  of  the  storm  there  emerged  a  State  delivered 
from  the  blot  of  slavery,  which  has  now  regained  its 
old  prosperity,  and  there  emerged  also  a  national 
Republic  more  truly  united  than  it  ever  was  before. 
The  jealousies  of  States,  the  antagonism  of  North  and 
South,  the  rivalry  of  Virginia  and  Massachusetts,  have 
now  happily  vanished  in  a  far  vaster  nation.  The 
Carolina  of  Calhoun  and  the  Illinois  of  Lincoln  can 
both  look  back  without  bitterness  on  those  Virginia 


12        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

battle-fields  where  Lee  and  Grant  won  undying  fame. 
The  problems  that  occupy  the  thoughts  of  your  people 
and  tax  to  the  utmost  the  wisdom  of  your  statesmen, 
have,  with  one  exception,  that  problem  which  slavery 
bequeathed,  nothing  to  do  with  geographical  boundaries. 
Never  was  there  in  this  country  so  strong  a  sense  that 
whatever  the  future  may  have  in  store,  the  Federal 
Union  —  "an  indestructible  union  of  indestructible 
States"  —  must  and  will  be  preserved.  It  is  guarded 
not  only  by  your  national  patriotism,  but  by  nature 
herself,  who  has  made  your  land  one  from  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  a  land  fit  to  be  the  home  of 
one  undivided  nation. 

In  this  season  of  fair  weather  it  is  natural  that  your 
eyes  should  look  back  across  the  sea  to  the  ancient 
Motherland,  from  whom  you  were  for  a  time  divided 
by  clouds  of  misunderstanding  that  have  now  melted 
away  into  the  blue.  Between  you  and  her  there  is 
now  an  affection  and  a  sympathy  such  as  perhaps 
there  never  was  before  in  the  days  of  your  political 
connection.  To-day  she  rejoices  with  you  in  your 
prosperity  and  your  unity.  She  is  proud  of  you,  and 
among  her  many  achievements  there  is  none  of  which 
she  is  more  proud  than  this,  that  she  laid  the  foundation 
of  your  vast  and  splendid  Republic,  giving  you  those 
institutions  under  which,  remodelled  to  suit  your  new 
conditions  and  your  extended  area,  your  ninety  millions 
of  people  now  live  in  peace  in  freedom. 

You  have  asked  me  to  say  what  England's  message 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  VIRGINIA  13 

to  America  would  be  on  this  three  hundredth  anniver- 
sary of  the  birth  of  the  American  nation. 

On  the  occasion  of  the  opening  of  the  Jamestown 
Tercentenary  Exposition  a  fortnight  ago,  I  had  the 
honour  of  transmitting  to  the  President  of  the  United 
States  a  greeting  from  the  King  and  his  Government 
in  the  following  words :  — 

"On  the  occasion  of  the  celebrations  commemorating 
the  tercentenary  of  the  foundation  of  the  first  English 
settlement  on  the  American  continent  at  Jamestown 
and  the  birth  of  the  American  nation,  his  Majesty's 
Government  wish  to  offer  their  warmest  congratulations 
to  the  United  States  Government  on  the  magnificent 
progress  and  development  which  have  brought  the 
United  States  into  the  first  rank  among  the  greatest 
nations  of  the  world,  not  only  in  material  prosperity, 
but  also  in  culture  and  peaceful  civilization.  The 
connection  which  must  ever  exist  in  history  between 
the  British  and  American  nations  will  never  be  for- 
gotten, and  will  contribute  to  increase  and  foster  ties 
of  affection  between  the  two  peoples." 

These  words  express  the  sentiment  of  the  British 
people,  their  sentiment  of  affection  and  of  pride,  of 
pride  in  what  you  have  done  already,  of  hope  for 
what  you  may  do  in  the  future. 

If  any  words  were  to  be  added  in  which  Englishmen 
who  have  reflected  upon  your  history  and  their  own 
history  would  seek  to  convey  their  view  of  the  teachings 
of  English  and  American  experience,  I  would  ask :  Could 


14        UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

the  ancient  Motherland  with  her  recollections  of  four- 
teen centuries  of  national  life  and  seven  centuries  of 
slow  but  steady  constitutional  development  send  to  her 
mighty  daughter  a  better  message  than  this  ?  "  Cherish 
alike  and  cherish  together  Liberty  and  Law.  They  are 
always  inseparable.  Without  liberty,  there  is  no  true 
law,  because  where  law  expresses  the  will  not  of  the 
whole  community,  but  merely  of  an  arbitrary  ruler  or 
a  selfish  class,  it  has  neither  moral  force  nor  guarantee 
of  permanence.  Without  order  and  law  duly  enforced 
and  equal  for  all,  there  is  no  true  liberty,  for  anarchy 
means  that  the  rights  of  the  gentle  and  the  weak  are 
overridden  by  the  violent.  In  the  union  of  ordered 
liberty  with  a  law  gradually  remoulded  from  age  to  age 
to  suit  the  changing  needs  of  the  people,  has  lain  and 
will  always  lie  the  progress  and  peace  both  of  Britain 
and  of  America." 


WHAT  UNIVERSITY  INSTRUCTION  MAY  DO 
TO  PROVIDE  INTELLECTUAL  PLEASURES 
FOR  LATER  LIFE 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO,  JUNE  u, 

1907. 


WHAT  UNIVERSITY  INSTRUCTION  MAY  DO 
TO  PROVIDE  INTELLECTUAL  PLEASURES 
FOR  LATER  LIFE 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO,  JUNE  n, 

1907. 

YOUR  University  is  placed  in  a  wonderful  city. 
In  the  rapidity  of  its  growth,  in  the  expansion  of  its 
trade  and  population,  it  has  no  parallel  in  the  modern 
world,  not  even  in  this  Western  world  which  has  shown 
so  many  new  and  startling  phenomena.  It  owes  its 
prosperity,  and  it  will  owe  that  marvellous  future  to 
which  it  looks  forward,  to  two  things.  One  is  the 
eager,  ardent,  restless  spirit,  keenly  perceptive  and 
unweariedly  active,  of  your  people.  The  other  is 
modern  science,  which  has  made  you  the  business 
centre  of  the  great  Northwest  and  has  enabled  vast 
industrial  enterprises  to  be  started  all  round  the  com- 
mercial heart  of  your  city.  James  Watt  and  the  other 
famous  inventors  who  have  followed  him  are  the  men 
who  have  made  such  a  city  as  Chicago  possible.  Your 
people  have  turned  the  possibility  into  a  reality.  Two 
great  departments  of  human  activity,  production  and 
transportation,  have  been  all  over  the  world  transformed 
by  science,  and  the  effect  of  the  change  is  felt  in  every 
other  department. 

c  17 


1 8        UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

It  must  needs  be  felt  in  education  also.  Seventy 
years  ago  applied  science  was  hardly  taught  at  all  in 
schools  and  universities,  and  theoretic  science,  except, 
of  course,  mathematics,  not  at  all  in  schools  and  but 
little  in  universities.  Now  science  has  come  to  domi- 
nate the  field  of  education,  and  in  some  countries  is 
avenging  herself  for  the  contumely  with  which  the 
old-fashioned  curriculum  used  to  treat  her  by  now 
herself  trying  to  relegate  the  study  of  language  and 
literature  to  a  secondary  place.  Nothing  could  have 
been  more  foolish  than  the  way  in  which  some  old- 
fashioned  classical  scholars  used  to  look  down  upon 
chemistry  and  physiology  as  vulgar  subjects.  But 
any  men  of  science  who  wish  to  treat  literature  or 
history  with  a  like  arrogance  will  make  just  as  great 
a  mistake. 

In  England  there  are  some  signs  of  this  arrogance, 
and  it  is  becoming  necessary  to  insist  upon  the  impor- 
tance of  the  human  as  opposed  to  the  natural  or  scien- 
tific subjects.  Whether  this  is  the  case  here  also 
you  know  better  than  I  do.  It  need  excite  no  surprise 
that  there  should  be  a  general  rush  at  present  towards 
those  branches  of  study  which  have  most  to  promise 
in  the  way  of  success  in  life.  But  I  am  glad  to 
know  that  in  the  greatest  universities  of  America 
ample  provision  is  made  for,  and  all  due  encouragement 
is  given  to,  the  humanistic  and  literary  subjects.  As- 
suming this  to  be  so,  assuming  that  for  the  purposes 
of  a  general  liberal  education  and  also  for  the  purpose 


UNIVERSITIES   AND   INTELLECTUAL  PLEASURE      19 

of  special  preparation  for  the  various  professions  and 
occupations,  all  lines  of  study  are  here  alike  recognized 
and  efficiently  taught,  I  pass  to  another  aspect  of 
what  university  education  may  accomplish. 

That  which  I  ask  you  to  join  me  in  considering 
is  the  value  and  helpfulness  to  the  individual  man  of 
scientific  studies  and  of  literary  studies,  respectively, 
not  for  success  in  any  occupation  or  profession,  nor 
for  any  other  gainful  purpose,  but  for  what  may  be 
called  the  enjoyment  of  h'fe  after  the  days  of  univer- 
sity education  have  ended. 

All  education  has  two  sides.  It  is  meant  to  impart 
the  knowledge,  the  skill,  the  habits  of  diligence  and 
concentration  which  are  needed  to  secure  practical 
success.  It  is  also  meant  to  form  character,  to  implant 
taste,  to  cultivate  the  imagination  and  the  emotions, 
to  prepare  a  man  to  enjoy  those  delights  which  be- 
long to  hours  of  leisure  and  to  the  inner  life  which 
goes  on,  or  ought  to  go  on,  all  the  time  within  his  own 
breast. 

All  study  contains  or  implies  the  pleasure  of  putting 
forth  our  powers,  of  mastering  difficulties,  of  acquiring 
new  aptitudes,  of  making  the  mental  faculties  quick 
and  deft  like  the  fingers.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  see  the 
intellect  gleam  and  cut  like  a  well-tempered  and 
keen-edged  sword.  This  kind  of  pleasure  can  be 
derived  from  all  studies,  though  not  from  aU  equally. 
Some  give  a  better  intellectual  training  than  others; 
some  are  better  fitted  for  one  particular  type  of  mind 


20       UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

than  for  other  types.  But  with  these  differences  I  do 
not  propose  to  deal  to-day.  I  want  you  to  think  of  the 
training  of  the  mind,  not  for  work  or  display,  but  for 
enjoyment. 

Everyone  of  us  ought  to  have  a  second  or  inner  life 
of  the  intellect  over  and  above  that  life  which  he  leads 
among  other  men  for  the  purposes  of  his  avocation,  be  it 
to  gain  money  or  power  or  fame,  or  be  it  to  serve  his 
country  or  his  neighbors.  Considering  himself  as  a 
Mind  made  to  reflect  and  to  enjoy,  he  ought  to  have 
some  pursuit,  some  taste  —  if  you  like,  even  some  fad 
or  hobby  —  to  which  he  can  turn  from  the  daily  routine 
of  his  work  for  rest  and  for  that  change  of  occupation 
which  is  the  best  kind  of  rest,  something  round  which 
his  thoughts  can  play  when  he  is  alone  and  in  which 
he  can  realize  his  independence  of  outward  calls,  his 
freedom  from  external  demands  and  external  restric- 
tions. Whatever  the  taste  or  pursuit  be,  whether  of  a 
higher  or  of  a  commoner  type,  to  have  it  is  a  good  thing 
for  him.  But  of  course  the  more  wholesome  and  stimu- 
lating and  elevating  the  taste  or  pursuit  is,  so  much 
the  better. 

Now  the  question  I  ask  you  to  consider  is  this : 
What  can  instruction  in  natural  science  do,  and  what 
can  instruction  in  the  human  or  literary  subjects  do, 
to  instil  such  tastes,  to  suggest  such  pursuits  ?  What 
sort  of  teaching  and  training  can  a  university  give  to 
its  student  fit  for  him  to  carry  away  from  the  uni- 
versity as  a  permanent  possession  for  his  own  private 


UNIVERSITIES  AND  INTELLECTUAL  PLEASURE     21 

use  and  pleasure,  to  be  added  to  by  his  exertions  as  he 
finds  time  and  opportunity,  not  that  he  may  be  richer 
or  more  famous,  but  that  he  may  be,  if  possible,  wiser, 
and  at  any  rate  happier  ? 

The  study  of  any  branch  of  natural  science  has  one 
great  charm  in  the  fact  that  it  opens  possibilities  of 
discovering  new  truth.  There  is  hardly  a  branch  of 
physics  or  chemistry,  or  of  biology  or  natural  history, 
in  which  the  patient  enquirer  may  not  hope  to  extend 
the  boundaries  of  knowledge.  This  is  what  makes 
physical  science,  as  a  professional  occupation,  so  attrac- 
tive. The  work  is  in  itself  interesting,  perhaps  even 
exciting,  quite  apart  from  any  profit  to  one's  self. 
One  is  occupied  with  what  is  permanent,  one  is  in 
quest  of  reality,  one  may  at  any  moment  taste  the  thrill- 
ing pleasures  of  discovery. 

But  such  work  requires  in  most  departments  an 
elaborate  provision  of  laboratories  and  apparatus,  and 
(in  nearly  all  departments  of  research)  an  amount  of  time 
constantly  devoted  to  observation  and  experiment  which 
practically  restricts  it  to  those  who  make  it  the  business 
of  their  life,  and  puts  it  out  of  the  reach  of  persons 
actually  engaged  in  some  other  occupation.  Dis- 
coveries have  been  made  by  scientific  amateurs.  Ben- 
jamin Franklin  and  his  contemporaries,  Cavendish 
and  Priestley,  are  cases  in  point.  But  this  is  increas- 
ingly difficult.  Few  lawyers  or  merchants  or  engi- 
neers or  practising  physicians  can  hope  for  time  to 
enjoy  this  pleasure.  The  best  that  a  scientific  educa- 


22        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

tion  can  do  for  them  is  to  start  them  with  enough 
knowledge  to  enable  them  to  follow  intelligently  the 
onward  march  of  scientific  investigation. 

There  is  also  a  pleasure  in  meditating  upon  the  ulti- 
mate problems  of  matter,  force,  and  life,  even  if  one 
cannot  do  anything  toward  solving  them.  The  un- 
known appeals  to  our  imagination,  especially  if  we  have 
imagination  enough  to  feel  that  the  unknown  is  all 
around  us,  and  to  realize  the  grandeur  and  solemnity 
of  nature.  You  all  remember  the  majestic  lines  in 
which  the  Roman  poet  declares  his  passionate 
desire  that  the  divine  mistresses  of  knowledge  should 
explain  to  him  the  secrets  of  the  universe :  — 

Me  vero  primum  dulces  ante  omnia  Musae, 
Quarum  sacra  fero  ingenti  perculsus  amore, 
Accipiant,  coelique  vias  et  sidera  monstrent; 
Defectus  soils  varies,  lunaeque  labores; 
Unde  tremor  terris;  qua  vi  maria  alta  tumescant, 
Objicibus  ruptis,  rursusque  in  se  ipsa  residant.1 

The  mysteries  which  chiefly  excited  Virgil's  curiosity 
were  the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  the  eclipses 
of  the  sun  and  moon,  the  cause  of  earthquakes,  and 
the  theory  of  the  tides.  Of  these  the  second  and  the 
last  have  so  long  ago  been  explained  that  they  no 
longer  greatly  engage  the  thoughts  of  others  than 
astronomers,  while  the  causes  that  produce  earth- 
quakes are  at  any  rate  partially  known.  Our  curiosity 
regarding  the  first,  now  concentrated  upon  the  move- 

1  Virgil  in  the  second  book  of  the  Georgics. 


UNIVERSITIES  AND   INTELLECTUAL   PLEASURE     23 

ments  of  the  so-called  Fixed  Stars,  has  of  late  years 
become  keener  than  ever  as  new  vistas  of  enquiry  are 
opening  themselves  to  view.  Yet  it  is  now  that  border- 
land of  physics,  chemistry,  and  metaphysics  in  which 
lie  questions  relating  to  the  nature  of  matter  itself 
and  the  persistence  of  force  under  diverse  forms,  which 
chiefly  rouses  our  wonder,  and  makes  us  speculate  as 
to  whether  light  may  be  thrown  from  that  side  upon 
the  relations  of  what  is  called  Matter  to  what  is 
called  Mind.  Whoever  possesses  even  a  slight  ac- 
quaintance with  chemistry  and  physics  is  more  capable 
of  following  the  course  of  investigation  in  this  direc- 
tion than  are  persons  altogether  without  scientific 
training ;  and  these  problems  are  no  less  fitted  to  touch 
a  susceptible  imagination  than  were  those  which  Virgil 
vainly  sought  to  comprehend. 

In  these  ways  natural  science  may  appeal  even  to 
those  whose  daily  course  of  life  debars  them  from 
continuing  to  study  it;  and  this  is  one  of  the  reasons 
which  suggests  that  some  knowledge  at  least  of  the 
method  and  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  science, 
mathematical  and  physical,  is  a  necessary  part  of  a 
liberal  education. 

What  we  call  natural  history  (i.e.  geology,  botany, 
and  zoology)  stands  on  a  somewhat  different  footing. 
No  pursuits  give  more  pleasure,  or  a  purer  kind  of 
pleasure,  than  that  given  by  these  forms  of  enquiry. 
They  take  us  into  open-air  nature,  they  make  us  fa- 
miliar with  her,  and  they  generally  involve  active  exer- 


24        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

tion  of  body  as  well  as  mind.  The  only  drawback  is 
that  it  is  difficult  for  the  dwellers  in  those  vast  cities, 
which  have  unfortunately  grown  up  during  the  last 
hundred  years,  to  enjoy  these  pursuits,  except  for  a 
few  holiday  weeks  in  summer. 

If,  however,  we  revert  to  the  question  of  how  much 
science  can  do,  in  the  case  of  those  whose  occupa- 
tions forbid  them  to  prosecute  systematic  scientific 
study,  for  the  enrichment  and  refinement  of  that  inner 
life  whereof  I  have  spoken,  we  shall  find  that  the  range 
of  its  influence  is  limited.  It  is  only  in  certain  aspects 
that  it  appeals  to  the  imagination,  nor  does  every  man's 
imagination  respond.  To  the  emotions,  other  than 
those  of  wonder  and  admiration,  it  does  not  directly 
appeal.  It  is  remote  from  the  hopes,  the  fears,  the 
needs,  the  aspirations  of  human  beings.  While  you  are 
at  work  on  the  hydrocarbons  in  the  college  laboratory, 
your  curiosity  and  interest  are  roused  by  the  remark- 
able phenomena  they  present.  But  they  do  not  help 
you  to  order  your  life  and  conversation  aright.  Euclid's 
geometry  is  interesting  as  a  model  of  exact  deductive 
reasoning.  One  remembers  it  with  pleasure.  A  man 
who  has  some  leisure  and  some  talent  in  this  direction 
may  all  through  his  life  enjoy  the  effort  of  solving  mathe- 
matical problems.  But  has  any  one  at  a  supreme  mo- 
ment of  some  moral  struggle  ever  been  able  to  find  help 
and  stimulus  in  the  thought  that  the  square  described 
upon  the  hypotenuse  of  a  right-angled  triangle  is  equal 
to  the  squares  described  on  the  two  other  sides  thereof  ? 


UNIVERSITIES  AND  INTELLECTUAL   PLEASURE     25 

By  far  the  larger  part  of  the  life  of  everyone  of  us 
as  a  being  who  thinks  and  feels  is  that  part  which  puts 
him  in  contact  with  other  human  beings,  either  with  the 
lives  of  those  whom  he  meets  or  with  the  thoughts  and 
deeds  of  those  who  in  time  past  have  done  memorable 
acts,  or  have  left  written  words  round  which  his  own 
mind  can  play.  Man  himself  —  "the  little  God  of  the 
world  "  as  Mephistopheles  calls  him1  —  is  the  principal 
thing  on  this  globe  as  we  know  it,  and  that  which  ex- 
plains him  has  after  all  the  deepest  interest  for  us. 

Whatever  be  anyone's  occupation,  he  spends  most 
of  his  working  hours  in  the  company  of  his  fellow-men. 
They  may  not  delight  him,  as  they  did  not  delight 
Hamlet,  or  they  may  delight  him,  as  they  surely  must 
have  delighted  Shakespeare.  But  whether  they  delight 
him  or  not,  they  are  an  inexhaustible  field  of  study ;  and 
the  study  becomes  more  interesting  when  we  compare  the 
persons  whom  we  meet  and  observe  with  the  figures  that 
stand  out  in  the  works  of  those  masters  of  fiction  who 
have  known  how  to  make  human  nature  as  true  in  tale 
or  drama  as  it  is  in  fact.  So  is  it,  too,  with  those  whose 
words  and  deeds  have  come  down  to  us  from  the  past. 
When  one  has  gazed  upon  the  portraits  of  famous  men 
in  the  long  and  stately  gallery  of  history,  one  can  view 
with  a  more  sympathetic  or  more  humorous  eye  the 
endless  picture-show  that  moves  before  his  vision  in  the 
present. 

Accordingly,  when  we  turn  from  thinking  of  our 
1In  the  Prologue  to  Goethe's  Fattst. 


26        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

active  life  in  the  world  to  the  inner  or  personal  life, 
it  is  the  human  subjects  which  are  best  fitted  to  nourish 
it  and  illumine  it.  Under  the  human  subjects  I  include 
history,  philosophy,  and  imaginative  literature.  His- 
tory (of  which  biography  is  a  part)  covers  all  that 
man  has  thought  and  felt  and  said  and  planned  and 
achieved.  It  is  the  best  mirror  of  human  nature, 
for  it  describes  things  in  the  concrete,  human  nature 
not  as  we  fancy  it  but  as  it  is.  It  reveals  to  us 
not  only  what  has  been,  but  how  that  which  is  has 
come  to  be  what  it  is.  It  helps  to  explain  to  us  our 
own  generation  as  well  as  those  that  have  gone  be- 
fore. Rightly  understood,  it  does  this  better  than 
all  the  dissertations  and  exhortations,  —  plenius  et 
mdius  Chrysippo  et  Crantore,  —  perhaps  better  even 
than  the  sermons.  That  there  are  many  doubtful 
questions  in  history  does  not  materially  reduce  its 
value.  The  trained  historian  smiles  at  those  who 
say  that  history  is  false  because  some  things  are  and 
some  may  even  always  remain  uncertain ;  though  no 
one  will  be  and  ought  to  be  more  severe  toward  those 
who  recklessly  neglect  or  wilfully  pervert  the  facts 
so  far  as  ascertainable. 

Psychology  and  ethics,  though  they  are  more  and 
more  seeking,  like  history,  to  follow  scientific  methods, 
approach  the  study  of  human  nature  in  a  more  abstract 
and  general  way  than  history  does.  They  have  the 
great  interest,  of  appealing  directly  to  individual 
consciousness,  and  whoever  has  formed  a  taste  for  them 


UNIVERSITIES  AND   INTELLECTUAL   PLEASURE     27 

will  find  that  he  has  an  infinite  field  open  for  observ- 
ing the  phenomena  which  he  himself  and  those  around 
him  present.  He  may  even  experiment  on  them,  but 
such  experiments,  unless  carefully  conducted,  may  be 
as  dangerous  as  those  which  chemists  euphemistically 
describe  as  attended  by  a  sudden  and  rapid  evolution 
of  sound,  light,  and  heat. 

Of  literature,  as  apart  from  history  and  philosophy, 
there  are  many  branches,  but  that  branch  which  I  seek 
to  dwell  upon  for  our  present  purpose  is  poetry  and  the 
imaginative  treatment,  whether  in  verse  or  hi  prose, 
of  human  themes.  Epic  and  dramatic  poems  present 
pictures  of  life  as  the  highest  constructive  minds  have 
seen  it.  Reflective  and  lyric  poems  are  the  finest 
expression  that  has  been  found  for  human  emotion. 
In  their  several  ways  they  give  voice  to  what  in  our 
clearest  moments  of  vision  or  at  our  highest  moments 
of  exaltation,  we  ordinary  mortals  are  able  dimly 
to  feel  but  faintly  or  feebly  to  express.  In  this 
way  they  both  instruct  us  and  stimulate  us  more  than 
anything  else  can  do;  and  they  also  give  a  rare  and 
delicate  pleasure  by  the  perfection  of  their  form.  In 
urging  on  you  what  universities  may  do  to  implant  a 
love  of  literature  which  shall  last  through  life,  let  me 
lay  especial  stress  upon  the  literature  of  periods  remote 
from  our  own.  The  narratives  and  the  poetry  of  prim- 
itive peoples  such  as  the  ancient  Hebrews,  and  the 
ancient  Greeks,  and  our  own  far-off  Teutonic  and  Celtic 
forefathers  have  the  incomparable  merit  of  presenting 


28       UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

thought  and  passion  in  their  simplest  form.  They  do 
us  an  immense  service  in  illuminating  the  annals  of 
mankind  as  a  whole,  by  making  us  feel  our  own  identity 
with  and  yet  also  our  differences  from  the  earlier  phases 
of  human  society.  They  give  a  sense  of  the  growth 
and  development  of  the  human  spirit  which  carries  us 
out  of  our  own  narrow  horizon,  which  makes  all  the 
movements  of  the  world  seem  to  be  part  of  one  great 
drama,  which  saves  us  from  fancying  ourselves  to  be 
better  or  wiser  than  those  who  went  before,  which 
ennobles  life  itself  by  the  ample  prospect  which  it 
opens. 

Most  —  though  not  all  —  of  the  literature  I  am 
speaking  of  can  be  fully  enjoyed  and  appreciated  only 
in  the  languages  in  which  it  was  originally  composed. 
These  are  vulgarly  called  "dead  languages."  Let  no 
one  be  afraid  of  that  name.  No  language  is  dead  which 
perfectly  conveys  thoughts  that  are  alive  and  are  as 
full  of  energy  now  as  they  ever  were.  An  idea  or  a 
feeling  grandly  expressed  lives  forever,  and  gives  im- 
mortality to  the  words  that  enshrine  it. 

Let  me  add  that  it  is  in  large  measure  through 
literature  that  we  have  been  able  to  enjoy  the  pleas- 
ures of  nature  and  those  of  art.  Whoever  possesses 
a  sense  for  form  and  color  may  appreciate  a  fine  pict- 
ure without  any  knowledge  of  the  technique  of  paint- 
ing. But  he  will  see  comparatively  little  in  it  if  his 
taste  has  not  been  formed  and  trained  by  the  study  of 
masterpieces  and  if  his  mind  has  not  received  the  cul- 


UNIVERSITIES   AND   INTELLECTUAL   PLEASURE     29 

tivation  which  letters  and  history  give.  So  a  man  need 
not  have  read  the  poets  to  be  able  to  find  delight  in  a 
beautiful  landscape.  But  he  will  enjoy  it  far  more  if  he 
knows  what  Thomson,  Cowper,  Burns,  Scott,  Shelley, 
Ruskin,  and  above  all,  Wordsworth,  have  written. 
How  much  have  they  done  to  increase  a  sense  of 
the  charm  of  nature  in  all  who  use  our  tongue ! 

What  are  the  practical  conclusions  which  I  desire 
to  submit  to  you  as  the  result  of  these  suggestions? 
They  are  two. 

The  ardour  with  which  the  study  of  the  physical 
sciences  is  now  pursued  for  practical  purposes  must 
not  make  us  forget  that  education  has  to  do  a  great 
deal  more  than  turn  out  a  man  fitted  to  succeed  in 
business.  It  must  also  endeavour  to  give  him  a  power 
of  enjoying  the  best  pleasures.  The  physical  sciences 
do  open  such  pleasures,  but  these  are  not  so  easily 
obtained,  nor  so  well  adapted  to  stimulate  and  polish 
most  minds,  nor  so  calculated  to  strengthen  and  refine 
the  character,  as  those  which  can  be  drawn  from  the 
human  or  literary  subjects. 

Secondly,  in  the  study  of  such  literary  subjects  as 
languages  and  history,  we  must  beware  of  giving 
exclusive  attention  to  the  technicalities  of  grammar 
and  to  purely  critical  enquiries.  There  is  some  risk 
that  in  the  eagerness  to  apply  exact  methods  so  as 
to  secure  accuracy  and  a  mastery  of  detail,  the  literary 
quality  of  the  books  read  and  the  dramatic  and  personal 
aspect  of  the  events  and  persons  studied  may  be  too 


30        UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

little  regarded.  Exact  methods  and  the  whole  ap- 
paratus of  grammatical  lore  have  their  use  for  the 
purposes  of  college  training,  but  in  after  years  it 
is  the  thoughts  and  style  of  the  writers,  the  perma- 
nent significance  or  the  romantic  quality  of  the  events, 
that  ought  to  dwell  in  the  mind.  There  is  certainly 
in  England  a  tendency,  perhaps  due  to  German  in- 
fluences, to  hold  that  history  ought,  hi  order  that 
it  may  be  thoroughly  scientific,  to  welcome  dulness 
and  dryness.  It  is  said,  I  know  not  with  what  truth, 
that  the  same  tendency  is  felt  here.  The  ethical  side 
and  the  romantic  side  may  have  been  overdone  in 
time  past,  but  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  one  of 
the  chief  aims  of  history  is  to  illustrate  human  nature. 
We  need  throughout  life  to  have  all  the  light  thrown 
upon  human  nature  that  history  and  philosophy  can 
throw ;  to  have  all  the  help  and  inspiration  for  our  own 
lives  that  poetry  can  give.  Much  of  everyone's  work 
is  dull  and  monotonous,  perhaps  even  depressing,  and 
that  escape  from  the  dulness  of  many  a  business  career 
which  the  strain  of  fierce  competition  or  bold  specula- 
tion promises  is  a  dangerous  resource.  It  is  better  to 
nurture  and  cherish  what  I  have  ventured  to  call  the 
inner  life.  Not  all  can  succeed ;  none  can  escape  sor- 
rows and  disapointments.  He  who  under  disappoint- 
ments or  sorrows  has  no  resources  within  his  own 
command  beyond  his  daily  round  of  business  duties, 
nothing  to  which  he  can  turn  to  cheer  or  refresh  his  mind, 
wants  a  precious  spring  of  strength  and  consolation. 


UNIVERSITIES   AND   INTELLECTUAL   PLEASURE     31 

Nowhere  in  the  world  is  there  so  strong  a  desire 
among  the  people  for  a  university  education  as  here 
in  America.  The  effects  of  this  will  no  doubt  be 
felt  in  the  coming  generation.  Let  us  hope  they  will 
be  felt  not  only  in  the  completer  equipment  of  your 
citizens  for  public  life  and  their  warmer  zeal  for  civic 
progress,  but  also  in  a  true  perception  of  the  essential 
elements  of  happiness,  an  enlarged  capacity  for  enjoy- 
ing those  simple  pleasures  which  the  cultivation  of 
taste  and  imagination  opens  to  us  all. 


THE  LANDING   OF  THE  PILGRIMS  IN   1620 

ADDRESS  AT  PROVINCETOWN,  CAPE  COD,  MASSACHUSETTS,  JULY, 

1907. 


THE  LANDING  OF  THE  PILGRIMS  IN  1620 

ADDRESS  AT  PROVINCETOWN,  CAPE  COD,  MASSACHUSETTS,  JULY,  1907. 

FIRST  let  me  thank  you,  in  behalf  of  the  Sovereign  and 
the  people  whom  I  am  honoured  by  being  deputed  to 
represent  in  the  United  States,  for  your  invitation  to 
join  hi  the  celebration  to-day  of  a  great  event.  It  is 
fitting  that  Old  England,  whence  came  the  settlers 
whose  anding  at  this  spot  you  commemorate,  should 
be  remembered  here  in  this  oldest  part  of  New  England 
and  should  send  you  her  greeting. 

These  colonists  were  men  of  the  right  stamp  to  settle 
and  develop  a  new  country.  England  gave  you  of  her 
best,  and  she  gave  them  in  a  great  crisis  of  her  own  fate. 

She  has  ever  since  watched  the  fortunes  of  their 
descendants,  marking  their  growing  greatness,  and 
never  with  more  pride,  more  sympathy,  and  more 
affection  than  she  does  to-day. 

Many  of  you  may  remember  to  have  seen  some- 
where on  the  island-girt  coasts  of  Massachusetts  or 
Maine  a  rainbow  stretching  from  one  isle  to  another, 
and  seeming  to  make  a  radiant  bridge  from  land  to  land. 
It  is  a  beautiful  sight,  and  still  more  beautiful  when  the 
rainbow  is  a  double  one. 

In  this  shape  of  a  double  rainbow,  bridging  the  ocean 

35 


36        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

from  England  to  America,  there  presents  itself  to  me 
the  double  settlement  of  this  continent  by  the  men 
who  founded  Virginia  and  the  men  who  founded 
Massachusetts.  The  rainbow  is  the  symbol  of  hope, 
and  America  has  been  and  still  is  to  Europe  the  Land 
of  Hope.  Over  this  bridge  of  hope  millions  have  passed 
from  the  Old  World  hither,  and  it  is  in  the  spirit  of  hope 
for  the  future  of  a  land  so  blessed  by  Providence  as 
yours  that  we  of  England  send  our  hearty  greetings. 

Much  has  been  said  —  indeed,  little  has  been  left 
unsaid — in  praise  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  for  this  coun- 
try is  fertile  in  celebrations,  and  I  cannot  hope  to  say 
anything  new  about  them.  But  every  man  must 
speak  of  a  thing  as  it  strikes  him. 

I  ask  myself,  when  I  think  of  these  exiles  coming  to 
make  their  home  on  what  was  then  a  bleak  and  desert 
shore :  What  was  it  that  brought  them  thither  ?  Was 
it  the  love  of  civil  liberty?  They  loved  civil  liberty, 
for  they  had  suffered  from  the  oppression  of  the  royal 
officers,  but  it  was  not  mainly  for  the  sake  of  that 
liberty  that  they  came,  nor  indeed  had  the  great  struggle 
yet  begun  when  they  quitted  England  to  spend  those 
years  in  friendly  Holland  which  preceded  their  voyage 
hither.  Nor  were  these  Pilgrims  made  of  the  same  stern 
fighting  stuff  as  the  Puritans  who  came  to  another 
part  of  Massachusetts  Bay  a  little  later  and  became 
the  founders  of  Salem  and  Boston. 

Was  it  for  the  love  of  religious  liberty  ?  Not  at  any 
rate  for  such  a  general  freedom  of  conscience  as  we  and 


THE  LANDING  OF  THE  PILGRIMS  IN   1620        37 

you  have  now  long  enjoyed,  not  for  the  freedom  that 
means  an  unquestioned  right  to  all  men  to  speak  and 
write  and  teach  as  they  would.  The  proclamation  of 
that  general  freedom  and  the  rights  of  the  individual 
conscience  might  not  have  been  altogether  congenial  to 
either  Pilgrims  or  Puritans.  Certainly  it  had  not  yet 
been  made  by  its  noble  apostle,  Roger  Williams,  the 
founder  of  Rhode  Island,  the  most  original  in  his  think- 
ing and  perhaps  the  most  lovable  hi  his  character  of  all 
the  founders  of  North  American  Colonies. 

What  these  Pilgrims  did  desire  and  what  brought  them 
here  was  the  wish  to  worship  God  in  the  way  they  held  to 
be  the  right  way.  It  was  loyalty  to  truth  and  to  duty  as 
they  saw  it  that  moved  them  to  quit  first  their  English 
homes  and  friends,  and  then  their  refuge  in  Holland,  and 
face  the  terrors  of  the  sea  and  the  rigours  of  a  winter  far 
harsher  than  their  own,  in  an  untrodden  land,  where 
enemies  lurked  in  trackless  forests. 

No  one  expected  to  find  gold  on  the  shores  of  Massachu- 
setts Bay.  No  one  hoped  for  that  fountain  of  youth 
which  Ponce  de  Leon  had  sought  in  Florida  a  century 
before.  No  one  dreamed  of  the  mighty  State  which 
was  to  grow  out  of  the  tiny  settlement. 

Not  in  the  thirst  for  gold ;  not  hi  the  passion  for 
adventure ;  not  for  the  sake  of  dominion,  but  in  faith 
and  in  duty  were  laid  the  foundations  of  the  Colony 
and  State  of  Massachusetts. 

Is  not  this  what  their  settlement  means  to  us  now 
after  three  hundred  years?  Faith  and  duty,  when 


38        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

mated  to  courage  (for  without  courage  they  avail  little) 
are  the  most  solid  basis  on  which  the  greatness  of  a 
nation  can  rest.  The  strength  of  a  State  lies  in  the 
characters  of  its  citizens. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  Massachusetts  to  Italy,  but  when 
I  think  of  these  forefathers  of  yours,  —  and  here  I  think 
of  the  Puritans  as  well  as  the  Pilgrims,  and  of  the  men 
of  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island  as  well  as  the  men  of 
Massachusetts,  —  men  of  plain,  stern  lives,  of  high  pur- 
poses and  steadfast  wills,  I  am  reminded  of  the  famous 
line  in  which  the  great  Roman  poet  says  that  it  was  on 
the  austere  simplicity  of  her  olden  days  and  the  strong 
men  she  reared  that  the  might  of  Rome  was  founded. 

Moribus  antiquis  stat  res  Romana  virisque. 

Such  men  were  your  Puritan  makers  of  New  England. 
They  were  hewn  from  the  same  rock  as  those  soldiers 
of  Cromwell,  some  of  whom  were  doubtless  their  kins- 
folk, before  whom  every  enemy  went  down,  and  to 
whom  was  fitly  applied  that  verse  from  the  Hebrew 
Psalm :  "Let  the  praises  of  God  be  in  their  mouths  and 
a  two-edged  sword  in  their  hands." 

They  were  men  of  a  bold  and  independent  spirit,  but 
they  knew  the  value  of  law,  and  these  Pilgrims  of  A.  D. 
1620,  coming  into  a  region  for  which  no  government 
had  yet  been  provided,  bound  themselves  to  one  another 
by  a  solemn  compact  signed  in  the  cabin  of  their  ship ; 
constituting  themselves  "a  civill  body  politick"  with 
power  to  "enacte  just  and  equall  lawes,"  to  which  they 


THE  LANDING  OF  THE  PILGRIMS  IN  1620        39 

promised  all  due  submission  and  obedience,  thereafter 
choosing  one  of  themselves  to  be  their  Governor  for 
the  year  ensuing. 

Many  generations  have  come  and  gone  since  the 
November  days  when  the  little  Mayflower  lay  rocking 
in  yonder  bay,  with  the  Pilgrim  mothers  and  sisters  look- 
ing out  wistfully  over  the  cold,  gray  waters,  in  those  days 
silent  and  lonely,  and  with  the  children,  cooped  up  for 
many  a  weary  week,  asking  when,  at  last,  they  would 
be  put  on  shore. 

Many  things  have  come  to  pass,  both  in  England  and 
here,  which  those  grave,  grim  ancestors  of  yours  might 
disapprove,  good  and  necessary  as  you  and  we  may 
think  them.  But  one  thing  remains  as  true  now  as  it 
was  then. 

The  fearless  man  who  loves  truth  and  obeys  duty 
is  the  man  who  prevails  and  whose  work  endures. 
The  State  which  has  such  men,  and  to  which  such  men 
are  glad  to  render  devoted  service  in  war  as  in  peace, 
grows  to  be  the  great  State.  Those  men  bequeathed 
to  you  traditions  and  the  memory  of  high  thoughts 
and  brave  deeds  which  have  been  helpful  to  you  ever 
since  hi  many  an  hour  of  need,  and  will  be  helpful  to 
you  while  your  Republic  stands.  Many  new  elements 
have  entered  into  the  American  people,  and  much  of  the 
blood  of  the  New  England  of  to-day  comes  from  other 
than  old  English  sources.  But  there  is  an  inheritance 
of  the  spirit  as  well  as  of  the  blood,  and  the  type 
survives  because  it  has  become  a  part  of  the  character 


40        UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

which  each  generation  transmits  to  those  who  come 
after.  So  may  the  type  of  the  resolute,  God-fearing 
men  who  laid  the  foundations  of  this  Commonwealth 
abide  with  you  for  ages  to  come. 

You  are  setting  the  corner-stone  of  a  Tower  which, 
looking  far  out  over  the  waves  of  the  Atlantic,  shall  com- 
memorate those  who  laid  the  foundations  of  the  Com- 
monwealth of  Massachusetts,  an  event  worthy  of  ever- 
lasting memory.  Yet  there  is  a  sense  in  which  we  may 
deem  that  no  monument  piled  high  in  stone  is  needed. 

It  was  said  by  a  famous  statesman  of  antiquity  that 
"  the  whole  earth  is  the  tomb  of  illustrious  men."  So  the 
wide  land  which  the  descendants  of  these  settlers  have 
covered  with  flourishing  cities  and  in  which  they  them- 
selves planted  the  first  seeds  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
government  is  itself  their  most  enduring  monument. 

In  their  darkest  days  one  wrote  to  them  from  Eng- 
land :  "Let  it  not  be  grievous  unto  you  that  you  have 
been  instruments  to  break  the  ice  for  others.  The 
honour  shall  be  yours  to  the  world's  end."  That 
honour  has  been  theirs  and  will  be  theirs. 

From  Cape  Cod  here  close  beside  you  to  Cape  Flat- 
tery on  the  far-off  shores  of  the  Pacific,  corn-fields  and 
mines,  railroads,  and  populous  cities,  State  Houses 
where  legislatures  meet,  and  courts  where  justice  is 
dispensed,  all  bear  witness  to  the  men  who  here  began 
the  work  of  civilizing  a  continent  and  establishing  in 
it  a  government  rooted  from  the  first,  and  rooted  deep, 
in  the  principles  of  liberty. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 
AND  HISTORICAL  ENVIRONMENT  ON  THE 
DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COMMON  LAW 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  TO  THE  AMERICAN  BAR  ASSOCIATION  AT  ITS 
ANNUAL  MEETING  IN  PORTLAND,  MAINE,  AUGUST,  1907. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 
AND  HISTORICAL  ENVIRONMENT  ON  THE 
DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COMMON  LAW 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  TO  THE  AMERICAN  BAR  ASSOCIATION  AT  ITS 
ANNUAL  MEETING  IN  PORTLAND,  MAINE,  AUGUST,  1907. 

NOT  long. ago  I  had  occasion  to  read  an  opinion  ren- 
dered on  a  point  of  law  by  an  eminent  legal  practitioner 
in  a  Spanish-American  country.  The  point  itself  was 
one  which  might  have  arisen  equally  well  in  the  United 
States  or  in  England.  But  the  way  of  approaching  it 
and  dealing  with  it,  the  turn  of  thought  and  the  forms 
of  expression,  were  curiously  unlike  those  which  one 
would  have  found  in  anyone  trained  in  the  Common 
Law  whether  in  the  United  States  or  in  England.  This 
unlikeness  pointed  to  some  inherent  difference  in  the 
way  of  looking  at  and  handling  legal  questions.  Many 
of  you  have  doubtless  had  a  similar  experience,  and 
have  been  similarly  led  to  ask  what  is  at  the  bottom  of 
this  difference  between  the  legal  ideas  and  legal  methods 
of  ourselves  whose  minds  have  been  formed  by  the 
study  of  the  Common  Law  and  the  ideas  and  methods 
of  the  lawyers  who  belong  to  the  European  continent 
or  to  South  and  Central  American  States.  French, 
German,  Italian,  Spanish  lawyers  are  all  more  like  one 

43 


44        UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

another  than  any  of  these  are  to  Englishmen  or  Ameri- 
cans. 

The  causes  of  this  difference  lie  far  back  in  the 
past.  It  would  have  been  discernible  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  might  indeed  have 
been  even  more  marked  then  than  it  is  now.  Two 
hundred  years  ago  the  law  of  England  had  already 
acquired  a  distinctive  quality,  and  that  quality  has 
remained  distinctive  until  now,  both  here  and  in  Old 
England,  although  the  substantive  provisions  of  the 
law  have  been  changed  in  many  respects  by  the  eco- 
nomic and  social  progress  which  the  two  branches  of  the 
race  have  made,  and  by  the  new  conditions  under 
which  those  branches  live.  We  may  still  with  truth 
speak  of  the  Common  Law  as  being  the  common  posses- 
sion of  the  United  States  and  of  England,  because  that 
spirit,  those  tendencies,  those  mental  habits  which 
belonged  to  the  English  stock  when  still  undivided 
have  been  preserved.  The  causes  that  produced  them 
belong  to  a  period  long  anterior  to  1776,  when  the  an- 
cestors of  Marshall,  Kent,  Story,  Taney,  Webster, 
Curtis,  were  living  in  English  villages  side  by  side  with 
those  of  Coke,  Hale,  Holt,  Hardwicke,  Blackstone, 
Eldon,  and  the  other  sages  who  adorn  the  English  roll 
of  legal  fame.  These  causes  were  indeed  at  work  far 
back  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Just  as  the  character  of  an 
individual  man  is  in  its  essence  formed  before  he 
attains  manhood,  though  the  circumstances  of  his  life 
modify  it,  giving  prominence  to  some  parts  of  it  and 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE   COMMON  LAW  45 

leaving  others  undeveloped,  so  in  those  early  centuries 
were  formed  that  set  of  ideas  and  that  type  of  mind 
which  took  shape  in  the  provisions  and  the  procedure 
of  the  old  law  of  England.  The  substance  of  these  pro- 
visions was  partly  general,  that  is,  such  as  must  exist  in 
every  organized  and  civilized  society,  partly  special, 
such  as  the  particular  conditions  of  the  country  and 
the  time  needed.  The  form  was  due  to  the  lawyers, 
whether  judges,  writers,  or  practitioners.  Now  the 
form  has  greatly  affected  the  substance,  and  has  proved 
hardly  less  permanent.  When  we  study  the  growth  of 
the  Common  Law  we  must  think  not  only  of  the  rules 
of  inheritance,  the  doctrine  of  consideration  for  a 
contract,  the  conception  of  felony,  the  definition  of 
manor;  we  must  think  also  of  the  forms  of  actions, 
of  the  jury,  of  the  authority  of  decided  cases.  All 
these  were  already  well  settled  before  the  first  English 
colonist  set  foot  on  the  American  continent.  They 
had  become  part  of  the  life  and  legal  consciousness  of 
the  nation. 

What  would  an  observer  who  had  studied  legal  his- 
tory in  general  select  as  the  distinguishing  qualities,  the 
peculiar  and  characteristic  notes  of  the  Common  Law  ? 

First,  its  firm  grasp  of  the  rights  of  the  individual 
citizen.  He  is  conceived  of,  he  is  dealt  with,  as  a  centre 
of  force,  an  active  atom,  whirling  about  among  other 
atoms,  a  person  in  whom  there  inhere  certain  powers 
and  capacities,  which  he  is  entitled  to  assert  and  make 
effective,  not  only  against  other  citizens,  but  against 


46        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

all  other  citizens  taken  together;  that  is,  as  against 
the  state  itself  and  its  visible  embodiment  or  organ,  the 
executive  government. 

Secondly,  its  recognition  of  the  state  and  the  execu- 
tive as  clothed  with  the  authority  of  the  whole  com- 
munity, as  being  an  effective  power,  entitled  to  require 
and  compel  the  obedience  of  the  individual  wherever 
and  whenever  it  does  not  trespass  on  the  rights  which 
are  legally  secured  to  him.  To  be  effective,  law  must 
have  not  only  physical  force  behind  it,  but  also  the 
principle  of  legitimate  authority,  the  sense  in  every 
citizen  that  his  individual  free  will  has  its  limits,  and 
can  be  exerted  only  within  the  sphere  allotted  to  it. 
Liberty  is,  in  a  civilized  community,  the  child  of  law. 
It  is  not  his  own  pleasure,  but  the  fact  that  the  com- 
munity has  recognized  a  certain  sphere  of  unchecked 
action  as  belonging  to  him,  within  which  he  can  do 
as  he  pleases,  that  secures  the  citizen  in  his  rights. 
Outside  that  sphere  he  must  not  only  obey,  but 
cooperate  with  the  executive.  It  is  his  duty  to  aid 
in  preventing  a  crime,  in  suppressing  disorder,  in 
arresting  an  offender.  A  sheriff  exercising  his  functions 
can  call  on  all  persons  present  to  support  him,  and 
they  are  bound  to  support  him,  a  wholesome  and,  if 
you  like,  a  truly  democratic  doctrine.  The  law 
is  the  people's  law,  not  only  in  its  origin,  but  also  for 
the  purpose  of  its  enforcement. 

These  two  principles  go  together.  The  one  is  a 
safeguard  against  Tyranny,  i.e.  the  absolute  and  capri- 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   COMMON  LAW  47 

cious  will  of  the  governing  power,  the  other  against 
Anarchy,  i.e.  that  unrestrained  and  unlimited  exercise 
of  the  will  of  each  and  every  citizen  which  must  result 
in  collision,  disorder,  and  the  triumph  of  mere  force. 

It  may  be  suggested  that  these  two  principles  are  not 
peculiar  to  the  Common  Law,  because  no  law  could  grow 
up,  and  no  state  could  prosper,  without  both  of  them. 
That  is  true.  But  there  have  been  systems  of  law  in 
which  sometimes  the  one,  sometimes  the  other,  prin- 
ciple was  imperfectly  developed,  and  (so  to  speak) 
overweighted  by  the  other.  The  former  principle  es- 
pecially (viz.  the  recognition  of  the  rights  of  the  citi- 
zen) has  often  been  quite  too  weak  to  secure  due  pro- 
tectiorf  to  the  individual  man.  It  is  the  clearness 
with  which  both  have  been  recognized,  the  fulness  with 
which  both  have  been  developed,  in  the  mediaeval  and 
post-mediaeval  English  law  that  constitute  its  highest 
merit. 

From  the  equal  recognition  of  these  two  principles 
there  follows  a  third  characteristic.  If  principles 
apparently  antagonistic  are  to  be  reconciled,  there 
must  be  a  precise  delimitation  of  their  respective  bounds 
and  limits.  The  law  must  be  definite  and  exact. 
Now  precision,  defmiteness,  exactitude  are  features 
of  the  Common  Law  so  conspicuous  that  the  unlearned 
laity  sometimes  think  they  have  been  developed  to  an 
inordinate  degree.  They  have  made  the  law  not  only 
very  minute,  but  very  technical.  But  of  this  anon. 

With  the  love  of  precision  there  naturally  goes  a  love 


48        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

of  certainty  and  fixity.  The  spirit  of  the  Common  Law 
is  a  conservative  spirit,  which  stands  upon  what  exists, 
distrusting  change,  and  refusing  change  until  change 
has  become  inevitable.  "Stare  super  antiquas  mas:" 
"Nolumus  leges  Anglice  mutari"  (the  words  of  the 
barons  at  the  council  of  Merton  in  Henry  the  Third's 
day) :  "It  is  better  that  the  law  should  be  certain  than 
that  the  law  should  be  just,"  these  were  favourite  dicta 
among  the  lawyers  of  the  old  school  in  England. 

The  respect  for  what  has  been  settled,  and  the  desire 
that  what  has  been  settled  should  be  definite  hi  its 
terms,  import  a  deference  to  precedent.  No  legal 
system,  not  even  the  Mussulman  law,  grounded  on 
Koranic  interpretation  and  traditions,  has  ever  gone 
so  far  in  obedience  to  what  was  ruled  in  the  past  as  the 
Common  Law  does  in  basing  itself  on  cases  judicially 
determined  and  recorded. 

Judicial  decisions  are  given,  legal  precedents  are 
made,  as  events  bring  them.  There  is  no  order  among 
them  except  the  chronological.  Thus  a  law  constructed 
out  of  them  is  necessarily  wanting  in  symmetry.  The 
Common  Law  is  admittedly  unsymmetrical.  Some 
might  call  it,  as  a  whole,  confused,  however  exact  may 
be  the  propositions  that  compose  it.  There  are  general 
principles  running  through  it,  but  these  are  often  hard 
to  follow,  so  numerous  are  the  exceptions.  There  are 
inconsistencies  in  it,  where  decisions  apparently  con- 
flicting have  been  given  by  different  authorities  at  dif- 
ferent times.  There  are  gaps  in  it,  where  no  decision 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   COMMON   LAW  49 

has  happened  to  cover  a  particular  set  of  circumstances. 
Thus  there  has  been  formed  a  tendency  among  lawyers 
to  rate  principles,  or,  let  us  say,  philosophical  and  logical 
views  of  the  law,  very  low  compared  with  any  positive 
declaration  made  by  a  court.  The  maxim,  "An  ounce 
of  precedent  is  worth  a  pound  of  principle,"  still  ex- 
presses the  attitude  of  the  profession  hi  England,  and 
very  possibly  here  also. 

With  the  love  of  certainty  and  definiteness  there 
goes  a  respect  for  the  forms  of  legal  proceedings  and 
for  the  precise  verbal  expression  given  to  rules.  This 
is  a  quality  which  belongs  to  most  legal  systems  in  their 
earlier  stages.  It  was  very  highly  developed  in  the 
early  days  of  Rome  and  the  early  days  of  Iceland.  In 
the  Common  Law  it  held  its  ground  with  great  per- 
tinacity till  quite  recently,  both  in  England  and  here ; 
nor  am  I  sure  that  it  is  not  now  strong  in  some  of  your 
states,  possibly  stronger  than  in  the  England  of  to-day, 
hi  which,  especially  since  the  sweeping  changes  made 
by  the  Judicature  Act  of  1873,  the  old  distinctions 
between  forms  of  actions  are  being  forgotten. 

You  may  think  that  among  the  features  that  char- 
acterize our  Common  Law  I  ought  to  name  the  love  of 
justice  and  also  the  fondness  for  subtle  distinctions.  I 
do  not,  however,  dwell  on  the  latter  of  these,  because  it 
belongs  to  all  legal  systems  that  reach  a  certain  point  of 
development,  and  is  even  more  evident  in  some  others 
than  in  our  own.  The  robust  common  sense  which 
is  inherent  in  the  Common  Law  seldom  encouraged 


50       UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

fine  distinctions  to  go  beyond  a  certain  point.  As  for 
the  love  of  justice,  it  belongs  to  mankind  generally, 
and  to  all  systems  of  law.  Such  differences  as  may  be 
noted  between  different  peoples  consist  not  in  the  reality 
of  the  wish  to  give  every  man  his  due,  —  suum  cuique 
tribuere,  —  but  in  the  self-control  which  prevents  emo- 
tional impulses  from  overriding  justice,  in  the  practical 
good  sense  which  perceives  that  to  allow  the  forms  of 
law  to  be  neglected  or  unusually  harsh  treatment  to 
be  inflicted  where  a  cause  or  a  person  happens  to  be 
unpopular,  is  really  to  injure  the  community  by  im- 
pairing the  respect  for  law  itself  and  the  confidence  in 
its  administration.  Englishmen  and  Americans  may 
claim  that  although,  like  others,  they  have  sometimes 
lapsed  from  the  right  path,  they  have,  on  the  whole, 
restrained  their  passions  from  trampling  upon  justice, 
and  upon  the  regular  methods  of  securing  justice,  better 
than  most  nations  have  done. 

The  foregoing  characteristics  of  our  Common  Law 
are  submitted  for  your  consideration,  not  as  being  the 
only  ones  which  belong  to  it,  for  others  might  be  added, 
but  as  being  characteristics  so  broad  and  salient  as  to 
make  it  comparatively  easy  to  discuss  them  and  to 
endeavour  to  account  for  them.  Some  are  found  in  all 
systems  that  have  reached  a  high  level  of  scientific 
development,  being  indeed  qualities  without  which  no 
system  could  be  deemed  excellent.  Only  one  other 
system,  the  Roman,  possesses  them  in  so  large  a  meas- 
ure as  to  deserve  comparison. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COMMON  LAW  51 

To  what  are  we  to  ascribe  these  features  distinctive 
of  the  Common  Law?  The  in-dwelling  qualities  of 
the  race  of  men  who  built  it  up  must  have  been  a  prin- 
cipal and  indeed  the  primary  cause.  The  mind  and 
character  of  a  people  are  indeed  more  exactly  and  ade- 
quately expressed  in  and  through  its  law  and  institutions 
than  they  are  through  its  literature  or  its  art.  For 
books  and  paintings  are  the  work  of  individual  men, 
many  of  whom  may  have  been  greatly  influenced  by 
foreign  ideas  or  foreign  models ;  and  some  of  whom, 
powerful  enough  to  influence  their  successors,  may  not 
have  been  typical  representatives  of  the  national  genius. 
But  laws  are  the  work  of  the  nation  as  a  whole,  framed 
indeed  by  the  ruling  class,  and  shaped  in  their  details 
by  a  professional  class,  but  to  a  large  extent  created 
by  other  classes  also,  because  (except  in  those  few  cases 
where  a  conqueror  imposes  his  own  law  on  the  van- 
quished) the  rules  which  govern  the  relations  of  the 
ordinary  citizen  must  be  such  as  suit  and  express  the 
wishes  of  the  ordinary  citizen,  being  in  harmony  with 
his  feelings  and  fitted  to  meet  the  needs  of  his  daily 
life.  They  are  the  offspring  of  custom,  and  custom  is 
the  child  of  the  people.  Thus  not  only  the  constructive 
intellect  of  the  educated  and  professional  class  but  the 
half-conscious  thought  and  sentiment  of  the  average 
man  go  to  the  making  and  moulding  of  the  law.  It  is 
the  outcome  of  what  German  philosophers  call  the 
legal  mind  (Rechtsbewusstsein,  or  Legal  Consciousness) 
of  a  nation. 


52        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

But  law  is  the  product  not  of  one  or  two  generations, 
but  of  many.  National  character  is  always  insensibly 
changing,  and  changing  more  rapidly  the  more  ad- 
vanced in  civilization  the  nation  becomes,  the  greater 
the  vicissitudes  in  its  fortunes,  and  the  more  constant 
or  intimate  its  intercourse  with  other  nations.  Hence 
institutions  become  the  expression  of  historical  in- 
fluences as  well  as  of  those  original  gifts  and 
tendencies  of  a  race  or  a  people  which  we  observe 
when  it  emerges  from  prehistoric  darkness.  Time  and 
circumstances  cooperate  in  the  work.  Law  is  the 
result  of  the  events  which  mould  a  nation  as  well  as  of 
the  mental  and  moral  qualities  with  which  the  nation 
started  on  its  career.  These  two  elements  are  so  mixed 
and  blent  in  their  working  that  it  is  hard  to  describe 
them  separately.  Nevertheless  let  us  try.  Let  us 
begin  by  a  glance  at  the  inborn  talents  and  temper  of 
the  English  people,  and  then  see  how  the  course  of 
history  trained  their  powers  and  guided  their  action. 

All  the  Teutons  are  strong,  resolute,  even  wilful; 
and  the  Low  Germans  and  Northmen  were  the  most 
active  and  forceful  branches  of  the  Teutonic  stock. 
Every  man  knew  his  rights  and  was  ready  to  assert 
his  rights  by  sword  and  axe.  Not  only  so,  —  he  was 
ready,  where  society  had  become  advanced  enough  for 
courts  to  grow  up,  to  assert  his  rights  by  legal  process 
also.  Read  the  Icelandic  Sagas,  in  which  records  of 
killings  and  of  lawsuits  are  mingled  in  about  equal 
proportion,  if  you  wish  to  realize  how  keen  was  the 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   COMMON  LAW  53 

sense  each  freeman  had  of  his  own  claims,  and  how  reso- 
lute he  was  in  enforcing  them.  Never  was  there  a 
people  more  fond  of  legal  strife  than  were  the  Nor- 
wegians and  Danes,  who  spread  themselves  over  East- 
ern Britain  in  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries,  or  than 
their  brethren,  whom  Rolf  Ganger  led  to  the  conquest 
of  the  northern  coast  of  France  in  the  ninth  century. 
The  Norman  peasant  is  proverbial  to-day  in  France 
for  his  litigiousness. 

In  this  self-assertiveness,  however,  there  is  no  dis- 
regard of  duly  constituted  authority.  The  primitive 
Teuton  had  his  Folk  Mot  in  England,  his  Thing  in  Nor- 
way and  Iceland.  He  was  loyal  to  his  chief  or  king. 
He  felt  his  duty  to  the  community  wherein  he  lived. 
He  did  not  always  obey  the  law,  but  he  respected  the 
law,  and  felt  the  need  of  its  enforcement. 

It  belongs  to  a  strong  race  to  have  the  power  of  self- 
control.  Our  forefathers  were  fierce  and  passionate, 
like  other  half-civilized  peoples,  but  they  had  this  power, 
and  they  restrained  themselves  from  overriding  the 
process  of  law  and  letting  passion  work  injustice  many 
a  time  when  men  of  other  races,  Greeks,  or  Slavs,  or 
Celts,  would  have  yielded  to  their  impulses.  So  too 
they  had  a  latent  solidity  and  steadiness  which  indis- 
posed them  to  frequent  or  fitful  change.  Compared 
with  their  Slavonic  neighbours  to  the  east  and  their 
Celtic  neighbours  to  the  west,  races  at  least  as  intel- 
lectually quick  and  intellectually  fertile,  the  Teutons 
have  always  been  of  a  conservative  temper.  This  may 


54        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

be  —  so  we  like  to  think  —  a  mark  of  good  sense  and 
patience,  or  it  may  be  an  attribute  of  dogged  and  slowly 
moving  minds.  Anyhow,  there  it  is,  and  (as  already 
remarked)  it  is,  for  the  purposes  of  law-building,  a 
merit  of  the  first  magnitude. 

Further,  the  mediaeval  English  mind  was  of  a  practi- 
cal rather  than  of  a  speculative  type.  It  had  plenty 
of  acumen,  plenty  of  logical  vigour.  But  it  did  not  run 
to  the  spinning  of  theories  or  the  trying  of  experiments. 
This  has  been  characteristic  more  or  less  of  the  English 
and  the  American  mind,  and,  I  may  add,  of  the  Low 
German  or  Dutch  mind,  ever  since,  as  compared  with 
the  Scotch  mind  and  with  that  of  our  brethren  the 
High  Germans  of  the  European  Continent.  For  those 
who  were  destined  to  create  a  great  and  complex  legal 
system,  it  was  an  excellent  quality.  Speaking  to  an 
American  audience,  no  one  would  venture  to  disparage 
ingenuity.  The  jurist  needs  it  daily.  But  the  jurist 
who  is  making  the  law  needs  caution  and  practical 
judgment  even  more ;  and  with  all  your  ingenuity,  it 
has  never  been  your  way  either  to  run  ahead  of  actual 
needs  or  to  pull  up  the  plant  to  see  whether  the  roots 
are  sprouting. 

Here,  then,  we  have  noted  five  characteristics  of 
those  to  whom  we  owe  the  Common  Law.  They  were 
strong  men  and  pugnacious  men;  they  respected  au- 
thority ;  they  could  at  need  control  their  impulses ; 
they  were  not  given  to  change ;  they  were  not  fertile 
in  theory  or  invention.  With  these  qualities  they 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COMMON  LAW  55 

started  on  the  work  of  making  law.  How  did  the 
conditions  of  England  from  the  twelfth  to  the  eigh- 
teenth century  affect  them,  and  so  guide  their  action 
as  to  bring  out  in  the  fulness  of  tune  the  legal  product 
we  have  inherited,  a  fruit  very  different  from  that 
which  ripened  under  the  sun  of  Germany  or  France  ? 

The  English  king  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  strong, 
stronger  than  the  kings  of  France  or  Castile  or  Aragon. 
He  was  from  the  days  of  Henry  II  onwards  effective 
master  (except  for  brief  intervals)  of  the  whole  realm. 
He  was  able  to  make  his  executive  authority  feared 
even  if  it  was  sometimes  disobeyed.  His  writ  ran 
everywhere.  His  judges  travelling  through  the  country 
brought  the  law  to  the  sight  of  all  men. 

His  aim,  and  that  of  his  judges,  was  during  the  thir- 
teenth and  fourteenth  centuries  to  build  up  one  law, 
instead  of  the  variety  of  the  diverse  customs  such  as 
had  grown  up  in  Continental  Europe.  Thus  he  and 
they  must  needs  strive  to  make  the  law  clear  and  cer- 
tain. Such  it  became.  Here  and  there,  as  in  Kent  and 
in  some  old  boroughs,  local  land  customs  survived,  yet 
not  enough  to  mar  the  unity  and  definiteness  of  the 
law  as  a  whole. 

From  good  motives  as  well  as  bad  ones,  the  king  was 
tempted  to  stretch  his  authority,  and  make  himself 
almost  a  despot.  He  was  so  strong  over  against  the 
barons  that  they  were  obliged  from  time  to  time  to  ally 
themselves  with  the  church  —  usually  their  antagonist 
—  and  with  the  middle  class  of  small  landholders  and 


56        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

burghers.  This  alliance  was  in  the  interests  of  freedom 
and  of  a  limitation  of  royal  power.  To  it  we  owe 
Magna  Charta,  and  the  long  line  of  restrictions  there- 
after imposed  on  arbitrary  government.  Now  Magna 
Charta  is  the  declaration  of  one  generally  binding  law. 
It  enounces  and  consecrates,  and  is  itself,  LEX  TERRAE, 
the  law  of  the  whole  land,  and  of  all  persons  therein. 
It  is  for  us  of  the  English  stock  the  parent  of  all  in- 
struments denning  the  relation  of  citizen  and  sovereign, 
be  the  sovereign  a  king  or  the  people.  It  is  the  an- 
cestor of  your  own  federal  constitution,  as  well  as  of  the 
"Bill  of  Rights"  provisions  of  all  State  constitutions. 
Just  as  the  barons  and  the  people  were  obliged  to 
base  themselves  upon  the  solemnly  made  engagements 
of  the  Crown  as  the  evidence  of  their  immunities,  so 
the  Crown,  acting  through  its  judges,  not  being  strong 
enough  to  make  its  own  policy  or  view  of  what  was 
right  prevail  as  a  mere  exercise  of  the  sovereign's  own 
will,  and  desiring  to  have  some  positive  authority  to 
set  against  the  texts  quoted  from  imperial  or  papal 
law  by  the  civilians  or  the  canonists,  was  forced  to  rely 
upon  acts  previously  done,  and  decisions  previously 
delivered,  and  to  found  the  law  upon  them.  Thus  both 
parties  were  led  to  appeal  to  and  lay  stress  upon  prece- 
dents. The  rights  which  the  law  enforced  were,  as 
usually  happens  in  early  times,  much  involved  with 
the  procedure  for  enforcing  them;  and  the  desire  to 
secure  uniformity  of  procedure  in  the  king's  courts  led 
to  the  constant  citation  of  judgments  delivered  on 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   COMMON  LAW  57 

previous  occasions.  Under  these  conditions,  and 
favoured  by  them,  there  grew  up  that  habit  of  record- 
ing and  following  decided  cases  which  is  so  eminently 
and  indeed  uniquely  characteristic  of  the  Common  Law. 

The  balance  of  forces  in  English  mediaeval  society 
appeared  most  clearly  in  the  relations  of  lord  and  vassal. 
Each  had  unquestionable  rights,  and  these  rights  were 
apt  to  come  into  conflict.  The  adjustment  of  conflict- 
ing claims  gave  constant  occupation  to  the  lawyers  and 
the  judges,  and,  while  forming  habits  of  exact  thought 
and  precise  statement,  it  created  a  great  mass  of  techni- 
cal learning.  The  older  English  land  law  was  indeed 
as  intricate  and  elaborately  artificial  a  body  of  rules 
as  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Though  modified  in  some 
important  points,  it  lasted  with  us  until  less  than  a  cen- 
tury ago,  when  it  began  to  be  so  cut  about  by  amending 
statutes  as  to  lose  its  ancient  logical  cohesion.  For 
some  reason  or  in  some  way  which  is  not  clear  to  most 
of  us,  many  of  its  technical  doctrines  were  held  not 
applicable  to  land  in  North  America,  so  you  have  es- 
caped most  of  the  complications  it  handed  down  to  us. 
But  the  process  which  produced  it  left  a  deep  impress 
on  the  law  generally.  Some  of  the  faults,  some  also 
of  the  merits,  of  the  Anglo-American  way  of  handling 
legal  questions  are  due  to  the  ancient  land  rights  and 
the  procedure  followed  in  trying  the  issues  that  arose 
under  them. 

English  freedom,  in  the  particular  legal  form  it  took, 
sprang  out  of  feudal  conditions.  In  reality,  it  was 


58       UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

older  than  feudality,  and  had  lost  some  of  its  simple 
Teutonic  breadth  when  overgrown  by  feudal  notions. 
But  the  structure  of  parliament  and  the  right  of  parlia- 
ment alone  to  impose  taxes  sprang  out  of  the  relation 
of  the  king  (as  feudal  lord)  to  his  tenants,  which  is  in 
a  certain  sense  a  private  relation  as  well  as  a  political 
one.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  what  we  call 
the  public  or  constitutional  law  of  England  is  a  part 
of,  as  it  has  certainly  grown  out  of,  the  private  law. 
Some  of  our  fundamental  constitutional  principles 
have  been  established  by  decisions  given  in  private 
suits.  And  although  you  in  America  can  draw  a 
sharper  line  between  public  and  private  law  than  can 
be  drawn  in  England,  because  you  have  a  written  or 
rigid  constitution,  and  we  have,  strictly  speaking,  no 
constitution  at  all,  still  the  old  character  of  the  Common 
Law  remains  plainly  visible  in  the  fact  that  many  of 
the  most  important  questions  that  have  arisen  on  the 
construction  of  your  federal  and  state  constitutions 
have  arisen  in  suits  between  private  parties,  where 
the  primary  issue  before  the  court  was  one  in  which 
the  rights  of  those  parties  had  to  be  determined. 

I  have  referred  to  exactitude  of  thought  and  expres- 
sion as  one  of  the  excellencies  which  we  justly  admire 
in  the  sages  of  the  Common  Law  and  particularly  in 
the  deliverances  of  the  judges.  That  exactitude  has 
become  a  feature  of  all  our  legal  thinking  and  legal 
writing,  and  has  in  particular  made  us  separate  more 
clearly  than  the  lawyers  of  most  other  nations  do, 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COMMON  LAW  59 

considerations  strictly  legal  from  those  which  belong 
to  the  sphere  of  morality  or  sentiment.  We  owe  this  in 
no  small  measure  to  the  old  system  of  pleading  which, 
slowly  matured  and  refined  to  an  excessive  point 
of  technicality,  gave  to  the  intellects  of  many  genera- 
tions of  lawyers  a  very  sharp  edge.  That  system  had 
the  great  merit  of  impressing  upon  them  the  need  for 
distinguishing  issues  of  law  from  issues  of  fact.  The 
first  lesson  a  student  learns  is  to  consider  in  any  given 
case  whether  he  ought  to  plead  or  to  demur.  It  is  a 
lesson  of  value  to  all  of  us  in  our  daily  life.  Half  the 
confusions  of  thought  in  the  world,  certainly  not  ex- 
cepting the  world  of  political  discussion,  arise  because 
men  have  not  learnt  to  ask  themselves  whether  the 
issue  is  one  of  fact  or  of  principle.  "Do  I  deny  the 
facts  or  do  I  dispute  the  inference  ?  Ought  I  to  plead 
or  to  demur?" 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  although  the  Common 
Law  came  into  existence  at  a  time  when  personal  slav- 
ery was  not  extinct  in  England,  and  had  reached  an 
advanced  state  of  development  before  praedial  slavery 
or  villenage  had  died  out,  the  existence  of  slavery  in 
the  North  American  colonies  had  nothing  to  do  with 
either  English  institution,  but  arose  quite  independently 
in  colonial  days.  Though  villenage  existed  at  Common 
Law,  and  is  said  to  have  lasted  into  the  seventeenth 
century,  personal  slavery  does  not,  I  think,  stand  re- 
corded and  recognized  in  any  English  Common  Law  book 
of  authority  or  in  any  decided  case,  and  I  suppose  that 


60       UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

the  incidents  of  negro  slavery  in  the  colonies,  doubtless 
practically  assumed  before  anyone  thought  of  specific 
legal  sanction,  were  either  parts  of  the  general  Common 
Law  of  personal  property  or  else  rested  upon  statutes 
of  those  colonies  in  which  slavery  existed.  It  may  be 
observed  in  passing  that  although  one  might  think 
that  the  recognition  of  the  rights  of  man  as  man  (i.e. 
as  a  human  being)  would  be  clearest  and  fullest  in  a 
country  where  there  were  no  slaves,  this  may  not  in 
fact  have  been  the  case.  Where  some  men  are  free 
and  others  are  slaves,  the  status  of  freedom  may  have 
been  conceived  more  sharply  as  a  positive  status,  and 
the  rights  belonging  to  the  individual  as  a  freeman 
may  have  stood  out  more  strongly,  because  he  is  le- 
gally exempt  from  treatment  to  which  the  slave  is 
liable.  As  a  freeman,  he  is  prima  facie  the  equal,  as  a 
holder  of  private  civil  rights,  of  all  other  free  men,  even 
though  the  latter  may  belong  to  a  specially  privileged 
caste.  The  history  of  the  Roman  law  of  persons  lends 
colour  to  this  view. 

On  no  feature  of  the  Common  Law  did  your  ancestors 
lay  more  stress  than  on  the  jury,  and  the  right  of  every 
citizen  to  be  tried  by  his  peers.  This  right  had  been 
a  bulwark  of  English  freedom,  and  was  deemed  in  the 
eighteenth  century  to  be  essential  thereto.  Yet  it 
deserves  to  be  noticed  that  the  jury  was  an  institution 
which,  in  the  form  familiar  to  us,  arose  almost  by  acci- 
dent. The  legal  genius,  or  instinct,  of  the  mediaeval 
English  may,  however,  be  credited  with  the  use  they 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE   COMMON  LAW  61 

made  of  this  accident.  Darwin  has  shown  how  a 
variation  from  a  type  which  in  its  origin  is  accidental, 
that  is  to  say,  due  to  some  cause  operative  in  an  in- 
dividual organism  which  is  beyond  our  power  of  en- 
quiry (do  we  quite  know  what  we  mean  when 
we  talk  of  chance?),  may  become  the  source  of  a  new 
type  possessing  advantages  which  enable  it  to  survive 
and  prevail  and  reach  a  higher  level  of  efficiency  than 
the  original  type  possessed.  So  it  may  be  not  too 
fanciful  to  suggest  that  where  a  political  or  legal  germ 
happens  to  fall  in  a  fertile  soil  the  virtue  of  the  soil 
enables  it  to  spring  up  and  become  the  parent  of  a 
flourishing  progeny.  Our  ancestors  moulded  the  jury 
into  an  instrument  serviceable  not  only  for  discovering 
the  truth  but  for  securing  freedom  and  justice,  freedom 
because  it  was  practically  independent  of  royal  power, 
justice  because,  although  it  was  sometimes  intimi- 
dated, and  occasionally  even  corrupted,  it  was  usually 
less  liable  to  be  tampered  with  by  those  malign  influences 
which  might  poison  the  mind  or  pervert  the  action  of  a 
judge  in  days  when  public  opinion  was  ill-informed  or 
weak.  We,  in  England,  have  no  longer  that  confidence 
in  the  wisdom  of  a  jury  in  certain  classes  of  civil  ac- 
tions which  we  once  had,  and  the  tendency  of  recent 
years  has  been  to  narrow  the  sphere  of  its  employment. 
But  the  institution  of  the  jury  has  had  some  notably 
beneficent  results.  Along  with  those  rules  of  pleading 
to  which  I  have  already  referred,  it  helped  to  form  in 
us  a  keener  sense  of  the  need  for  separating  issues  of 


62        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

law  from  issues  of  fact  than  exists  anywhere  outside 
England  and  America,  and  it  has  trained  us  how  to 
draw  this  distinction  in  every  case  we  have  to  advise 
on  or  to  argue.  It  has  tended  to  keep  judicial  deliver- 
ances of  the  law  within  due  limits  of  brevity,  because 
when  a  judge  finds  himself  tempted  to  wander  off  from 
a  determination  of  legal  points  into  the  general 
merits  of  the  case,  he  is  reminded  that  the  latter  are 
for  the  jury,  and  that  his  natural  human  tendency  to  do 
what  he  thinks  substantial  justice  must  be  restrained 
by  the  sense  that  his  business  is  to  declare  the  law  and 
be  content  with  advising  the  jury  on  the  facts.  It 
formed  the  practice  of  using,  at  a  criminal  trial,  evidence 
almost  exclusively  oral,  and  thus  incidentally  it  pre- 
vented both  those  secret  examinations  of  the  accused 
person  and  that  recourse  to  torture  which  were  com- 
mon in  Continental  Europe.  It  confirmed  the  ancient 
usage  of  requiring  judicial  proceedings  to  be  conducted 
in  public,  and  thus  kept  subject  to  the  watchful  eye  of 
popular  opinion.  And  it  mitigated  that  harshness  of 
the  penal  law  which  belongs  to  all  comparatively  rude 
societies  and  was  not  removed  from  the  English  statute 
book  till  within  the  memory  of  persons  still  living. 
When  men  were  liable  to  be  hanged  for  small  thefts, 
English  juries  refused  to  convict  for  such  offences,  and 
their  refusal  hastened  the  march  of  legislative  reform. 
The  mention  of  penal  matters  suggests  a  word  as  to 
the  extreme  technicality  of  the  older  Common  Law. 
Frequently  as  that  technicality  frustrated  the  doing  of 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COMMON  LAW  63 

substantial  justice  in  civil  cases,  it  had  its  advantages 
in  criminal  proceedings.     Often  a  prisoner  who  did  not 
deserve  a  severe  sentence  —  and  no  doubt  sometimes 
also  a  prisoner  who  did  —  escaped  on  some  technical 
ground.    The  Common  Law,  which  had  (as  already 
remarked)  the  great  merit  of  forbidding  the  use  of 
torture,  abominably  frequent  in  Continental  Europe 
and  practised  even  in  the  free  cantons  of  Switzerland 
till  near  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  had  also 
the  merit  of  forming  in  the  legal  profession  the  feeling 
that  an  accused  person  ought  to  have  a  fair  run  for 
life  or  freedom.    A  sportsmanlike  instinct  grew  up, 
like   that  which   gives   the  hunted  deer  "law"  or  a 
fair  start,  or   that  which  forbids   certain   tricks   by 
which  a  game  at  cricket  might  be  won.     A  judge  who 
bullied  a  prisoner  was  condemned  by  professional  opin- 
ion.   A  prosecuting  counsel  who  overstated  his  case  or 
betrayed  a  personal  eagerness  to  convict  the  prisoner, 
incurred  the  displeasure  of  his  brethren  and  was  sure 
to  hear  of  it  afterwards.     I  have  often  been  struck  in 
our  criminal  courts  by  the  self-restraint  which  experi- 
enced counsel  impose  on  themselves  when  conducting 
a  case,  as  well  as  by  the  care  which  the  judge  takes  to 
let  the  prisoner  have  the  benefit  of  every  circumstance 
in  his  favour.     Here  one  feels  the  tradition  of  the  Com- 
mon Law,  which  insisted  on  protecting  the  individual 
against  the  state.     How  different  things  are  in  some 
parts  of  the  European  continent  is  known  to  you  all. 
It  is  partly  because  this  good  tradition  has  been  so  well 


64        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

preserved  that  we  have  in  England  found  that  con- 
victed prisoners  need  comparatively  few  opportunities 
for  raising  points  of  law  after  the  trial.  The  trial  it- 
self almost  always  secures  for  them  whatever  justice 
requires,  though  of  course  there  is  a  power  of  raising 
for  subsequent  argument  points  reserved.1 

The  mediaeval  Common  Law  has  been  charged  with 
one  serious  defect,  that  of  lacking  elasticity  and  the 
power  of  expansion.  It  halted  at  a  certain  point.  It 
refused  to  deal,  or  I  should  perhaps  say,  its  machinery 
proved  incapable  of  dealing,  with  certain  sets  of  cases, 
and  left  them  to  be  taken  up  by  the  crown  acting 
through  the  Lord  Chancellor.  I  cannot  stop  to 
enquire  how  far  this  was  due  to  an  excess  of  con- 
servatism in  our  forefathers,  how  far  to  the  circum- 
stances of  the  time,  which,  while  circumscribing  the 
action  of  the  king  through  one  set  of  machinery,  left 
him  free  to  act  through  another.  Anyhow,  the  result 
was  that  the  huge  system  which  we  call  Equity  grew 
up  side  by  side  with  the  Common  Law,  remained  dis- 
tinct from  it  in  England  until  the  Judicature  Act  of 
1873,  and  I  believe  remains,  in  some  states  and  to  some 
extent,  still  distinct  from  it  in  the  United  States.  In 
a  broad  sense,  however,  although,  speaking  technically, 
we  distinguish  Common  Law  from  Equity,  we  may  in- 
clude Equity  within  the  term  Common  Law,  when  we 

1  In  the  present  session  of  Parliament  (1907)  an  Act  has  been 
passed  providing  for  an  appeal,  under  certain  circumstances,  in  crim- 
inal cases. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   COMMON  LAW  65 

use  this  latter  term  to  distinguish  the  law  of  England 
and  America  from  the  Roman  law  of  the  European 
continent,  or  of  Louisiana  and  Spanish  America. 
And  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  not  only  had 
Equity  become  a  thoroughly  positive  system  and  a 
technical  system  by  the  time  when  the  North 
American  colonies  were  founded,  but  also  that  it 
had  been  largely  influenced  by  the  same  historical 
environment  and  had  been  moulded  by  the  same 
national  tendencies  as  had  governed  the  growth 
of  the  law  administered  in  the  Common  Law  courts. 
How  much  of  its  own  precision  and  certainty  the  older 
system  had  given  to  the  younger  system  may  be  seen 
by  whoever  will  compare  English  Equity  with  the  civil 
law  of  most  European  countries  in  the  seventeenth 
century. 

I  have  kept  to  the  last  the  most  striking  of  all  the 
historical  conditions  which  determined  the  character 
of  Anglo-American  law.  England  (or  rather  Britain) 
was  an  island.  The  influences  which  governed  the 
development  of  law  in  the  European  mainland  reached 
her  in  an  attenuated  form.  The  English  people  had 
the  chance  of  making  a  new  start  and  of  creating  a 
system  of  law  for  themselves,  instead  of  merely  adopting 
or  adapting  the  Roman  jurisprudence,  as  did,  at  va- 
rious times  and  in  diverse  ways,  the  French,  the  Span- 
iards, the  Germans,  and  (ultimately  and  indirectly) 
nearly  all  modern  peoples  except  those  of  English 
stock.  We  must  not  indeed  exaggerate  the  originality 


66        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

of  our  law.  It  is  not  as  original  as  that  of  Iceland  would 
probably  have  been,  had  Iceland  gone  on  developing 
the  legal  customs  she  had  formed  by  the  middle  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  It  is  not  original  in  the  sense  of 
owing  little  or  nothing  to  foreign  sources,  for  a  great 
deal  of  law  flowed  from  Roman  fountains  into  the 
English  stream.  When  (according  to  Gervase  of 
Tilbury)  the  Lombard  Vacarius  taught  the  Roman 
law  in  the  reign  of  King  Stephen  at  Oxford  — 
this  is  among  the  very  first  traces  we  have  of  that 
famous  university  —  we  cannot  suppose  that  his  hear- 
ers were  confined  to  those  who  wished  to  practise  in 
the  ecclesiastical  courts.  In  the  next  century  we  find 
Bracton,  one  of  our  earliest  legal  writers,  copying  freely 
from  the  Roman  law  books,  though  he  frequently  also 
contradicts  them  when  English  usage  differed.  In  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  the  ecclesiastical 
chancellors  who  built  up  the  system  of  Equity  were 
much  influenced  by  Roman  legal  doctrines,  drawn 
largely  through  canonist  channels.  Still  the  fact 
remains  that  the  law  of  England  was  a  new  creation, 
not  an  adaptation  of  the  law  of  the  Empire.  It  has  a 
character  and  a  quality  which  are  all  its  own ;  and  its 
free  spirit  and  tendencies  have  always  stood  out  in 
marked  contrast  to  the  despotic  spirit  and  tendencies 
which  France,  Spain,  and  Germany  inherited  from  the 
imperial  jurisprudence.  To  that  jurisprudence  it  was, 
during  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  centuries  that  followed, 
as  much  superior  in  respect  for  freedom  and  in  what 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COMMON  LAW  67 

may  be  called  a  popular  flavour  as  it  was  inferior  in 
respect  of  the  philosophic  breadth  and  elegance  of  the 
ancient  sources  on  which  that  imperial  jurisprudence 
was  founded.  The  use  of  the  jury,  the  far  larger 
place  assigned  to  oral  evidence,  the  sharper  separation 
of  issues  of  law  from  issues  of  fact,  are  among  the 
most  salient  points  in  which  its  distinctive  and  indi- 
vidual quality  appears. 

I  had  intended  to  have  given  you  a  brief  sketch  of 
the  earlier  history  of  the  ancient  Roman  law  for  the 
sake  of  showing  how  the  characteristics  of  that  great 
rival  system  sprang  from  features  in  the  national  char- 
acter of  the  Romans  in  their  Republican  days,  not  un- 
like those  which  marked  our  ancestors.  The  Romans 
too  had  a  genius  for  law.  Less  imaginative,  less  artistic, 
less  acute  in  speculation,  altogether  less  intellectually 
versatile  and  alert  than  were  the  Greeks,  they  had  a 
greater  capacity  for  building  up  and  bringing  to  an  al- 
most finished  and  certainly  unsurpassed  perfection  a 
body  of  legal  principles  and  rules.  They  possessed  this 
capacity  in  respect  of  gifts  like  those  of  our  ancestors. 
They  realized  clearly  the  rights  of  the  individual  as 
against  the  state.  They  were  conservative.  They  had 
the  power  of  self-control.  They  were  filled  with  practi- 
cal good  sense.  But  this  great  subject  is  too  great 
to  be  dealt  with  at  the  end  of  an  address,  and  I  must 
be  content  with  recommending  it  to  the  attention  of 
those  who  are  interested  in  these  studies  as  throwing 
much  light  upon  the  general  tendencies  which  have 


68        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

governed  the  growth  of  law.  The  best  illustrations 
of  English  legal  history  are  to  be  found  in  Roman  legal 
history. 

I  have  so  far  been  speaking  of  the  Common  Law  as 
a  product  of  the  English  intellect  under  certain  pecul- 
iar historical  conditions.  But  if  it  was  a  result,  it  was 
also  a  cause.  It  reacted  powerfully  upon  the  people 
that  made  it.  Just  as  the  habit  of  physical  or  mental 
exercise  strengthens  the  body  or  the  mind  where  na- 
tive energy  has  made  exercise  enjoyable,  so  the  Common 
Law,  once  created,  began  to  develop  further  and  give 
more  definite  form  to  those  very  qualities  of  the  na- 
tion whereto  its  own  features  were  due.  Under  its  in- 
fluence the  national  mind  became  more  and  more  per- 
meated by  the  spirit  of  legality.  It  grew  accustomed 
to  resist  arbitrary  power,  but  as  it  did  this  in  defence 
of  prescriptive  right,  it  did  not  lapse  into  revolutionary 
ways.  Thus  there  was  formed  the  idea  of  a  govern- 
ment of  limited  powers,  and  the  habit,  when  anyone 
claimed  obedience,  of  requiring  him  to  show  his  title 
to  demand  it.  If  it  be  asked  why  should  not  such  a 
conception  of  the  legal  character  of  all  authority  be- 
long to,  and  arise  in,  every  duly  matured  system  of 
law,  the  answer  is  that  the  case  of  England  stood  alone 
in  this  respect,  that  the  law  came  early  to  be  recognized 
as  being  something  more  than  an  expression  of  the  will 
of  the  monarch.  It  sprang  partly  out  of  the  old  cus- 
toms, partly  (and  more  as  time  went  on)  from  an  as- 
sembly which  was  national,  although  not  yet  popular. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE   COMMON  LAW  69 

It  did  not  descend,  as  in  Continental  Europe,  from  an 
ancient  and  foreign  wisdom  or  authority.  It  was 
English.  It  came  not  from  above,  but  from  all  around. 
In  England,  moreover,  there  were  among  the  men 
who  knew  and  practised  the  law  not  a  few  persons  of 
independent  social  standing.  They  were  largely  the 
lesser  landholders  and  the  younger  sons  or  nephews 
of  some  of  the  larger  landholders,  and  so  they  formed 
a  link  between  the  nobles  and  the  middle  classes.  Un- 
like the  lawyers  of  France,  those  of  England  did  not 
generally  depend  on  the  Crown,  and  they  were  ready  on 
occasion  to  oppose  it.  Thus,  although  the  people  at 
large  knew  little  of  the  details  of  the  law,  the  spirit  of 
independent  legality  was  diffused  through  the  nation, 
and  legality  was  not  the  docile  servant  of  power  as  it 
became  in  countries  where  both  physical  force  and  the 
function  of  making  or  declaring  the  law  were  in  the 
hands  of  the  executive  ruler. 

How  great  a  part  the  conception  of  the  legal  rights 
of  the  subject  or  citizen  against  the  Crown  or  the  state 
power  played  in  English  and  American  history,  is  known 
to  you  all,  nor  need  I  dwell  on  the  capital  impor- 
tance for  the  whole  political  system  of  the  United 
States  of  that  doctrine  of  limited  powers  which  has 
been  so  admirably  worked  out  in  your  constitutions, 
nor  of  that  respect  for  a  defined  legal  right  which  sup- 
ports their  provisions.  The  life  of  every  nation  rests 
mainly  on  what  may  be  called  its  fixed  ideas,  those 
ideas  which  have  become  axioms  in  the  mind  of  every 


70       UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

citizen.  They  are  stronger  than  fundamental  laws, 
because  it  is  they  that  give  to  fundamental  laws  their 
strength.  They  are,  as  the  poet  says,  "  the  hidden  bases 
of  the  hills."  Now  it  was  mainly  by  the  Common  Law 
that  these  fixed  and  fundamental  ideas  were  moulded, 
whereon  the  constitutional  freedom  of  America,  as  of 
England,  rests. 

One  hundred  and  thirty-one  years  have  now  passed 
since  the  majestic  current  of  the  Common  Law  became 
divided  into  two  streams  which  have  ever  since  flowed 
in  distinct  channels.  Water  is  naturally  affected  by 
the  rock  over  or  the  soil  through  which  it  flows,  but 
these  two  streams  have  hitherto  preserved  almost  the 
same  tint  and  almost  the  same  flavour.  Many  statutes 
have  been  enacted  in  England  since  1776,  and  many 
more  enacted  here,  but  the  character  of  the  Common 
Law  remains  essentially  the  same,  and  it  forms  the 
same  mental  habits  in  those  who  study  and  practise  it. 
An  American  counsel  in  an  English  court,  or  an  Eng- 
lish counsel  in  an  American  court,  feels  himself  in  a 
familiar  atmosphere,  and  understands  what  is  going 
on,  and  why  it  is  going  on,  because  he  is  to  the  manner 
born.  You  read  and  quote  our  law  reports,  though 
they  are  nowadays  too  largely  filled  by  decisions  on 
recent  statutes;  we  read  and  quote  yours,  though 
embarrassed  by  the  enormous  quantity  of  the  food  (not 
all  of  it  equally  nutritious)  which  you  annually  present 
to  our  appetite.  In  nothing,  perhaps,  does  the  sub- 
stantial identity  of  the  two  branches  of  the  old  stock 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COMMON  LAW  71 

appear  so  much  as  in  the  doctrine  and  practice  of  the 
law,  for  the  fact  that  many  new  racial  elements  have 
gone  to  the  making  of  the  American  people  causes  in 
this  sphere  very  little  difference.  It  is  a  bond  of  union 
and  of  sympathy  whose  value  can  hardly  be  overrated. 
An  English  visitor  who  has  himself  been  trained  to  the 
law  can  find  few  keener  pleasures  than  that  which  my 
friends,  Lord  Justice  Kennedy,  Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  Sir 
Frederick  Pollock  (together  with  your  other  English 
legal  visitors),  and  I  enjoy  in  being  here  to-day  among 
so  many  eminent  members  of  our  own  profession  and  in 
seeing  how  influential  and  how  respected  a  place  that 
profession  holds,  and  has  always  held,  in  the  United 
States.  It  is  a  bond  of  sympathy  not  least  because  it 
is  a  source  of  common  pride.  There  is  nothing  of 
which  you  and  we  may  be  more  justly  proud  than  that 
our  common  forefathers  reared  this  majestic  fabric 
which  has  given  shelter  to  so  many  generations  of  men 
and  from  which  there  have  gone  forth  principles  of 
liberty  by  which  the  whole  world  has  profited. 

The  law  of  a  nation  is  not  only  the  expression  of  its 
character,  but  a  main  factor  in  its  greatness.  What 
the  bony  skeleton  is  to  the  body,  what  her  steel  ribs 
are  to  a  ship,  that  to  a  State  is  its  Law,  holding  all 
the  parts  fitly  joined  together  so  that  each  may  retain 
its  proper  place  and-  discharge  its  proper  functions. 
The  Common  Law  has  done  this  for  you  and  for  us 
in  such  wise  as  to  have  helped  to  form  the  mind  and 
habits  as  well  of  the  individual  citizens  as  of  the 


72        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

whole  nation.  Parts  of  it  these  private  citizens 
cannot  understand;  and  when  that  is  so  they  had 
better  not  try,  but  be  content  to  seek  your  professional 
advice.  But  it  is  all  their  own.  They  can  remould 
it  if  they  will.  Where  a  system  of  law  has  been  made 
by  the  people  and  for  the  people,  where  it  conforms  to 
their  sentiments  and  breathes  their  spirit,  it  deserves 
and  receives  the  confidence  of  the  people.  So  may  it 
ever  be  both  in  America  and  in  England. 


THE  CONDITIONS  AND  METHODS  OF 
LEGISLATION 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  TO  THE  NEW  YORK  STATE  BAR  ASSOCIATION, 
JANUARY,  1908. 


THE  CONDITIONS  AND  METHODS  OF 
LEGISLATION 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  TO  THE  NEW  YORK  STATE  BAR  ASSOCIATION, 
JANUARY,  1908. 

THE  subject  on  which  I  have  to  address  you  is  far  re- 
moved from  any  of  those  thoughts  with  which  the  polit- 
ical and  financial  excitement  of  the  moment  fills  the 
thoughts  of  the  legal  practitioner  either  in  the  rural 
parts  of  the  State,  or  here  in  New  York  City,  where 
the  financial  barometer  rises  and  falls  so  quickly,  and 
where  the  lawyer  is  often  summoned  to  administer 
spiritual  consolation  to  some  of  his  clients  in  the  part 
of  the  city  where  that  barometer  can  best  be  watched. 
But  it  may  have  some  interest  for  an  audience  which 
is  not  wholly  absorbed  in  its  professional  practice,  but 
has  also  to  watch  and  study  the  machinery  of  legisla- 
tion as  it  is  at  work  from  year  to  year. 

The  immense  increase  in  the  volume  of  legislation 
during  the  last  half  century  is  one  of  the  salient  fea- 
tures of  our  time.  Mr.  Choate  has  told  you  that  more 
than  five  thousand  statutes  were  passed  in  this  country 
during  the  last  two  years.  But  the  phenomenon  is 
not  confined  to  this  country.  Various  causes  may  be 
assigned  for  it.  It  may  be  due  to  the  swift  changes  in 
economic  and  social  conditions  which  have  called  forth 

75 


76       UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

new  laws  to  deal  with  those  facts.  Pessimists  may  per- 
haps ascribe  it  to  the  spread  of  new  evils  or  the  increase 
of  old  evils  which  the  State  is  always  attempting  by 
one  expedient  after  another  to  repress.  I  suppose  this 
is  what  Tacitus  meant  when  he  wrote  "  Corruptissima 
republica  plurimce.  leges"  Or  the  optimist  may  tell 
us  that  it  is  an  evidence  of  that  reforming  zeal  which  is 
resolved  to  use  the  power  of  the  State  and  the  law  for 
extirpating  ancient  faults  and  trying  to  make  every- 
one happier.  Which  of  these  or  of  other  possible  ex- 
planations is  the  true  one,  I  will  not  stop  to  consider. 
But  the  fact  that  the  output  of  legislation  has  of  late 
been  incomparably  greater  than  in  any  previous  age  — 
greater  not  only  absolutely,  but  in  proportion  to  the 
population  of  the  civilized  nations — suggests  a  con- 
sideration of  the  forms  and  methods  of  law-making  as 
a  timely  topic. 

In  no  country,  moreover,  is  the  output  of  statutes 
so  large  as  in  the  United  States,  where,  besides  Congress, 
forty-six 1  State  legislatures  are  busily  at  work  turning 
out  laws  on  all  imaginable  subjects,  with  a  faith  in  the 
power  of  law  to  bless  mankind  which  few  historians 
or  philosophers,  and  still  fewer  experienced  lawyers, 
will  be  found  to  share.  Nevertheless,  such  faith  is  a 
testimony  to  the  hopefulness  of  your  people,  and  no 
one  can  wish  that  any  people  should  ever  be  less  hopeful. 

In  modern  free  countries,  where  laws  are  enacted 
by  representative  assemblies,  where  the  economic  and 
JNow  (1913)  forty-eight. 


CONDITIONS  AND  METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION     77 

social  questions  to  be  dealt  with  are  generally  similar, 
and  where  the  masses  of  the  people  are  moved,  broadly 
speaking,  by  the  same  impulses,  the  problem  of  how 
to  make  legislation  satisfactory  in  substance  and  in 
form  is  virtually  the  same  problem  everywhere.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  light  which  the  experience  of  one  country 
affords  is  pretty  sure  to  be  useful  to  other  countries. 
These  we  call  private  acts.  I  will  try  to  indicate 
some  points  in  which  the  experience  of  methods  tried 
in  Britain  may  deserve  to  be  studied  by  you. 

In  the  United  States  your  enactments  are  all  of  one 
kind,  be  they  Federal  laws  or  State  laws :  all  emanate 
directly  from  the  legislature,  and  all  are  discussed  and 
passed  in  the  same  way.  In  Great  Britain  we  have 
found  it  desirable  to  divide  enactments  into  three 
classes:  First  we  have  public  general  statutes  passed 
by  Parliament.  Secondly,  we  have  enactments  of 
local  or  personal  application  affecting  the  rights  of  par- 
ticular areas  or  men,  or  particular  business  undertak- 
ings. Thirdly,  we  have  enactments  intended  to  be  of 
temporary  application,  or  at  any  rate  such  as  to  require 
amendment  from  time  to  time  in  order  to  adjust  them 
to  changing  conditions,  so  that  they  are  really  rather 
in  the  nature  of  executive  orders  than  to  be  classified 
among  permanent  laws.  Orders  of  this  executive  kind 
are  now  made  not  directly  by  Parliament,  but  either  by 
the  Crown  in  the  Privy  Council,  upon  some  few  mat- 
ters that  are  still  left  within  the  ancient  prerogative 
of  the  Crown,  or  else  under  statutory  powers  entrusted 


78        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

by  Parliament  either  to  the  Crown  in  Council  or  to  some 
administrative  department.  (I  believe  that  in  France, 
and  in  Germany  also,  such  orders  are  not  made  by  the 
supreme  legislature.)  There  is  also  a  larger  class  of 
rules  or  ordinances  of  a  somewhat  wider,  though  not 
universal,  application,  which  being  of  an  administrative 
nature  require  from  time  to  time  to  be  varied.  Such 
rules  or  ordinances  are,  in  England,  now  usually  made 
by  authorities  to  whom  power  in  that  behalf  has  been 
specially  delegated  by  Parliament.  Some,  including 
those  which  affect  the  Crown  colonies,  are  made  by 
the  Crown  in  Council.  These  we  call  Orders  in  Council, 
and  they  include  a  large  number  of  ordinances  made 
for  the  government  of  the  Crown  Colonies  which  do 
not  possess  self-government,  being  nearly  all  inhabited 
by  native  populations  not  deemed  qualified  for  its 
exercise.  Similar  to  these  are  the  Rules  or  Regula- 
tions dealing  with  administrative  matters  which  are 
issued  by  some  of  the  administrative  departments 
for  the  guidance  of  officials  and  of  local  authorities, 
under  a  power  conferred  in  that  behalf  by  Parliament. 
These  also  require  to  be  varied  from  time  to  time, 
and  are  therefore  not  fitted  to  be  dealt  with  by  Par- 
liament. With  these  one  may  class  the  rules  relating  to 
legal  procedure  in  the  Courts,  which  are  made  by  the 
Rules  Committee,  consisting  of  Judges  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Judicature,  and  other  representatives  of  the 
legal  profession,  chosen  for  the  purpose  and  acting 
under  a  power  given  by  statute.  The  advantage  of 


CONDITIONS  AND  METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION     79 

this  plan  is  that  it  enables  us  from  time  to  time  to 
modify  our  legal  procedure  without  the  necessity  of  re- 
ferring the  matter  to  Parliament. 

In  this  way  there  has  been  built  up  a  large  body  of 
what  may  be  called  subsidiary  law.  It  has  statutory 
effectiveness,  because  all  of  it  has  been  made  under 
the  powers  of  some  statute,  although  made  not 
directly  by  Parliament  itself,  but  under  delegated  par- 
liamentary authority.  These  subsidiary  enactments 
are  published  in  volumes  called  "  Statutory  Rules  and 
Orders."  They  form  a  large  collection  quite  distinct 
from  that  of  the  statutes.  Thus  the  dimensions  of 
our  statute  book  have  been  kept  down  while  the  dele- 
gation of  legislative  power  has  materially  reduced  the 
labour  of  Parliament. 

Let  me  now  return  to  the  second  class,  viz.,  acts 
passed  directly  by  Parliament  but  not  of  general  appli- 
cation. This  class  includes  enactments  which,  though 
they  apply  only  to  particular  places  or  persons,  and 
are  thus  not  parts  of  the  general  law,  such  as  railway 
acts,  canal,  gas  and  water,  and  electric  lighting  acts, 
acts  giving  specific  powers  to  municipalities,  and  so 
forth.  They  are  sharply  distinguished  from  General 
Public  acts  in  the  method  by  which  they  are  passed. 
They  are  brought  in  and  read  a  first  time  by  motion  of 
a  member  in  the  House  (either  Lords  or  Commons)  and 
upon  a  petition  by  private  persons.  Notices  have  to 
be  publicly  given  of  them  some  two  months  before  the 
usual  beginning  of  a  parliamentary  session  in  order  to 


8o        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

call  the  attention  of  all  persons  possibly  interested. 
They  are  advertised  in  the  newspapers  of  such  parts 
of  the  country  as  they  affect  in  order  that  every  person 
who  desires  to  oppose  them  may  have  an  opportunity 
of  entering  a  notice  of  opposition  and  being  heard  upon 
it.  When  they  are  brought  in  they  are  examined  by 
officials  called  the  Examiners  of  Standing  Orders,  who 
see  that  they  comply  with  the  general  rules  which 
Parliament  has  prescribed,  and  in  particular  that  all 
the  regulations  with  regard  to  notices  have  been  duly 
observed.  When  they  have  passed  the  Examiners  of 
Standing  Orders,  being  shown  to  have  complied  with  all 
the  rules  prescribed  in  that  behalf,  they  are  brought 
up  for  second  reading  and  usually  pass  that  stage 
without  discussion  or  division. 

If,  however,  a  private  bill  raises  some  large  question 
of  public  interest,  it  may  be  opposed  upon  second 
reading.  For  instance,  if  it  proposes  to  take,  for  the 
purpose  of  building  a  railroad,  common  land  over 
which  a  number  of  commoners  have  rights  of  pasture, 
and  to  close  paths  which  the  public  are  entitled  to  use, 
it  is  open  to  any  member  to  give  notice  of  opposition 
and  to  propose  its  rejection  on  grounds  of  general  pol- 
icy. So  again  if  it  relates  to  electric  power  or  light 
and  raises  the  question  whether  electricity  shall  be 
supplied  to  a  large  area  by  a  municipality  or  by  a  pri- 
vate company,  as  happened  recently  when  a  large  in- 
dustrial corporation  sought  power  from  Parliament  to 
create  an  enormous  power  establishment  to  supply 


CONDITIONS  AND  METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION     81 

electricity  to  every  part  of  London,  then  again  that 
question  would  be  fully  debated  on  second  reading  as 
being  a  question  of  public  policy  on  which  Parliament 
ought  to  pronounce,  laying  down  a  precedent  for  simi- 
lar cases  likely  to  arise  thereafter.  Such  cases  are, 
however,  uncommon,  and  most  private  bills  are  sent 
as  a  matter  of  course  to  what  we  call  a  private  bill 
committee. 

This  body  usually  consists  of  four  members,  but 
may  be  and,  in  the  case  of  very  important  bills, 
often  is  larger.  The  Chairman  is  always  a  man  of 
some  parliamentary  experience  and  business  capacity. 
We  have  a  panel  of  senior  members,  from  which  the 
Chairmen  are  taken,  and  they  become  by  practice 
expert  and  skilful  in  dealing  with  these  matters. 
All  the  members  of  such  a  committee  make  a  dec- 
laration that  they  have  no  private  interest  in  the 
matter  dealt  with  by  the  bill,  and  they  are  required 
to  deal  with  it  in  a  purely  judicial  spirit,  on  the  basis 
of  the  evidence  presented  and  the  arguments  used  by 
the  lawyers  who  represent  each  side,  just  as  in  a 
Court  of  Justice.  Party  politics  never  comes  into  the 
matter. 

No  one  is  permitted  to  address  private  solicitations  to 
the  members  of  the  committee  with  a  view  to  influence 
their  decision.  Even  a  member  of  the  House  privately 
approaching  or  trying  to  induce  any  member  of  the  com- 
mittee to  vote  in  a  particular  way  on  the  bill,  would  be 
considered  to  have  transgressed  the  rules,  and  be  severely 


82        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

condemned  by  his  fellow-members.  In  point  of  fact, 
the  thing  does  not  happen.  These  private  bill  commit- 
tees, whether  they  decide  right  or  wrong,  because  they 
sometimes  err  like  other  people,  are  always  understood 
to  be  impartial  and  honest.  In  that  way  the  procedure 
gives  general  satisfaction.  Neither  is  there  any  class  of 
persons  whose  business  it  is  to  "  lobby"  and  endeavour 
to  persuade  members  to  vote  for  or  against  a  measure. 
The  conduct  of  private  bills  is  in  the  hands  of  a  body 
of  regular  practitioners  who  are  called  parliamentary 
agents.  They  are  often,  but  not  always,  attorneys 
at  law.  They  are  an  organized  body  who  are  subject 
to  discipline,  bound  by  a  code  of  rules,  and  obliged  to 
observe  those  rules  just  as  strictly  as  any  other  kind 
of  legal  practitioner. 

Under  this  system  all  our  railways,  and  such  other 
public  undertakings  as  require  statutory  sanction,  have 
been  constructed,  and  have  had  their  legal  powers  from 
time  to  time  increased  or  varied.  It  has  worked  well 
in  every  respect  but  one.  It  has  been  costly,  for  where 
a  private  bill  is  hotly  contested,  the  fees  paid  to  agents 
and  counsel  sometimes  mount  up  to  huge  sums.  But 
it  has  been  administered  not  only  with  honesty,  but 
with  seldom  even  a  suspicion ;  and  it  has  relieved  the 
two  Houses  of  a  vast  mass  of  troublesome  detail  by 
leaving  this  work  to  judicial  committees  acting  in  a 
judicial  way.  It  has,  moreover,  the  advantage  of  giv- 
ing every  private  bill  the  certainty  of  being  examined 
on  its  merits,  and  its  merits  only.  Being  outside  the 


CONDITIONS  AND  METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION     83 

struggle  for  life  which  goes  on  among  public  bills,  sel- 
dom encroaching  on  their  time,  and  not  having  its 
time  encroached  on  by  them,  and  being  treated  in  a 
different  way,  the  pressure  of  public  business  does  not 
prevent  a  private  bill  (except  in  the  rare  cases  where 
a  large  public  issue  is  raised)  from  being  sent  to  and 
considered  by  a  committee,  and,  if  it  pass  the  committee, 
being  reported  to  the  House  and  passed  there  in  the 
course  of  one  session.  The  committee  may  reject  a 
bill,  but  cannot  get  rid  of  it  quietly  by  omitting  to 
report.  Finally,  it  relieves  members  of  Parliament 
from  being  obliged  to  spend  time  and  toil  in  advocat- 
ing or  opposing  bills  affecting  their  constituencies,  a 
process  in  which  more  enmities  may  be  incurred  than 
favour  gained.  Having,  during  twenty-seven  years 
spent  in  the  House  of  Commons,  represented  two 
great  industrial  communities,  I  can  bear  witness  to 
the  enormous  gain  to  a  member  in  being  free  from 
local  interests  and  local  pressure.  I  never  had  any 
solicitation  whatever  to  trouble  me  from  any  colleague 
in  regard  to  any  private  bill.  It  now  and  then,  though 
very  rarely,  happened  that  some  constituent  or  group 
of  constituents  wrote  to  me  and  said,  "  Such  and  such 
a  bill  is  pending  in  the  House  of  Commons,  or  House 
of  Lords;  we  are  very  much  interested  in  it  and  should 
be  glad  if  you  could  help."  I  had  always  an  answer 
which  was  easy,  and  which  had  the  further  merit  of 
being  entirely  correct  and  true;  namely,  that  I  was  not 
permitted  by  the  rules  of  the  House  of  Commons  to 


84       UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

endeavour  to  use  any  influence  upon  any  member  of 
the  committee  which  was  considering  that  bill.  The 
most  I  could  have  done  would  have  been  to  tell  the 
Chairman  publicly,  without  any  secrecy,  that  this  was 
a  bill  of  great  importance,  in  which  some  of  my  con- 
stituents were  interested,  and  to  beg  that  it  should 
have  the  fullest  and  most  careful  attention  from  the 
committee.  But  as  for  trying  to  exert  any  influence 
either  for  or  against  its  passing,  I  should  have  broken 
our  rules  had  I  tried  to  do  so. 

No  one  who  has  not  been  a  member  of  a  legislative 
body  can  know  what  a  relief  it  is  to  be  able  to  free  one's 
self  from  any  solicitations  of  this  kind. 

I  dwell  upon  this  point  in  order  to  explain  to  you 
how  it  is  the  British  Parliament  has  been  able  to  deal 
with  the  great  mass  of  local  legislation  imposed  on  it 
by  the  principle  that  special  statutory  authority  is 
required  for  undertakings  which  involve  the  compul- 
sory taking  of  land  or  the  creation  of  what  is  practi- 
cally a  monopoly.  But  the  relief  given  to  Parlia- 
ment, important  as  it  is,  has  been  the  least  among  the 
merits  of  the  system  used.  Its  great  service  has  been 
to  provide  a  method  in  which  matters  involving  im- 
mense pecuniary  interests  have  been  for  many  years 
past  so  dealt  with  as  to  raise  no  suspicions  of  corrup- 
tion or  unfair  personal  favour.  And  now,  leaving 
unnoticed  other  details  regarding  these  private  bills, 
let  me  pass  on  to  the  larger  question  of  public  gen- 
eral legislation,  which  has  most  interest  for  you  as 


CONDITIONS  AND  METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION     85 

lawyers  though  it  suffers  from  the  great  amount  of 
time  absorbed  by  local  and  personal  bills. 

The  quality  of  statute  law  may  be  considered  in 
respect :  first,  of  its  Form ;  secondly,  of  its  Substance. 

As  respects  Form,  you,  as  lawyers,  know  that  a 
statute  ought  to  be  clear,  concise,  consistent.  Its 
meaning  should  be  evident,  should  be  expressed  in  the 
fewest  possible  words,  should  contain  no  clause  con- 
tradicting another  or  anything  repugnant  to  any  other 
provision  of  the  statute  law,  except  of  course  to  such 
provisions  as  it  is  expressly  intended  to  repeal. 

To  secure  these  merits  three  things  are  needed ;  viz., 

(a)  that  a  bill  as  introduced  should  be  skilfully  drafted, 

(b)  that   pains    should   be    taken    to   see    that   all 
amendments  made  during  its  passage  are  also  properly 
drafted,  and  (c)  that  the  wording  is  carefully  revised 
at  the  last  stage  and  before  the  bill  is  enacted.     Of 
these  objects  the  first  is  in  Britain  pretty  well  secured 
by  the  modern  practice  of  having  all  government  bills 
prepared  by  the  official  draftsman,  who  is  called  the 
Parliamentary  Counsel.    Nearly  all  our  important  bills, 
and  indeed  nearly  all  the  bills  of  a  controversial  char- 
acter that  pass,  are  bills  brought  in  by  the  government 
of  the  day.     A  private  member  has  now,  owing  to  the 
pressure  of  time,  hardly  any  chance  of  passing  legisla- 
tion.    Therefore,  you  may  take  it  that  all  important 
legislation  is  prepared,  and  pushed  through,  by  the 
government.     The  government  has  an  official  perma- 
nent drafting  staff,  consisting  of  two  or  three  able  and 


86       UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

highly  trained  lawyers,  whose  business  it  is  to  put  its 
bills  into  the  best  shape.  If  they  are  not  always  perfect 
in  form,  that  may  not  be  the  fault  of  the  draftsman,  be- 
cause the  best  scientific  shape  is  not  necessarily  the 
shape  in  which  it  is  most  easy  to  pass  a  bill  through 
Parliament.  The  form  which  is  given  to  a  bill  may 
make  some  difference  to  the  amount  of  opposition  it 
will  excite,  and  a  better  drafted  measure  may  either 
rouse  more  antagonism  or  give  greater  opportunities  for 
attack  than  a  less  neatly  or  elegantly  drafted  one  would 
encounter,  and  also  to  afford  the  fewest  opportunities  for 
taking  divisions  in  committees.  It  is  one  of  the  rules 
of  our  Parliament  that  every  clause  has  to  be  separately 
put  to  the  vote  in  committee;  therefore,  the  more 
clauses,  the  more  divisions,  and  the  more  divisions, 
the  more  expenditure  of  time.  Hence,  if  you  put  a 
great  deal  of  matter  into  one  clause,  subdividing  it 
into  subsections,  and  parts  of  subsections,  instead  of 
letting  each  part  of  the  matter  to  be  enacted  have  a 
clause  to  itself,  you  have  fewer  debates  on  each  clause 
as  a  whole  and  fewer  divisions.  That  may  explain 
peculiarities  in  the  structure  of  recent  British  acts 
which  would  otherwise  excite  surprise.  It  is  hardly 
possible  that  legislation,  passed  by  a  popular  assembly, 
should  attain  to  that  high  standard  of  scientific  per- 
fection which  could  be  obtained  at  Rome,  where  a 
consul  or  a  tribune  put  to  the  vote  of  the  Assembly 
a  carefully  prepared  measure  which  could  not  be 
amended,  but  had  to  be  accepted  or  rejected  as  a 


CONDITIONS  AND  METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION     87 

whole.  Neither  could  the  work  be  so  neatly  done  as 
it  was  under  an  absolute  monarch  like  the  Roman 
Emperor. 

Our  statute  law  has  been  greatly  improved  in 
form  since  the  office  of  Parliamentary  draftsman  was 
created.  He  has  sometimes  functions  to  discharge  that 
require  high  skill  and  judgment.  It  often  happens 
that  the  minister  who  is  preparing  a  measure  has 
not  completely  thought  out  all  its  provisions,  and 
may  not,  even  if  he  be  himself  a  lawyer,  have  in 
his  mind  all  the  relations  which  the  bill  he  de- 
sires to  enact  will  bear  to  various  branches  of  a  vast 
and  complicated  system  of  law.  The  business  of  the 
Parliamentary  draftsman  is  not  only  to  take  the  ideas 
and  plans  of  the  minister  and  put  them  into  the  clearest 
and  most  concise  form,  but  also  to  warn  the  minister 
of  all  the  consequences  his  proposals  will  have  upon 
every  part  of  the  system,  and  to  help  him  to  consider 
what  is  the  best  way  in  which  the  amendment  in  the 
law  it  is  sought  to  effect  can  be  secured  and  expressed. 
The  Parliamentary  draftsman  has,  of  course,  nothing 
to  do  with  questions  of  governmental  policy  and  stands 
entirely  apart  from  party  politics.  He  must  serve  every 
administration  with  equal  zeal  and  loyalty.  But  if  he 
personally  is  a  man  of  real  ability,  who  understands 
public  questions,  has  mastered  the  particular  subject 
he  is  asked  to  deal  with,  perceives  its  difficulties  and 
sees  how  they  can  be  met,  he  may  give  the  most  valu- 
able assistance  to  the  minister.  All  our  ministers 


88       UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

gladly  acknowledged  what  they  owed  to  the  late  Sir 
Henry  Jenkyns,  who  long  filled  the  post  with  consum- 
mate ability,  though  few  persons  outside  the  narrow 
circle  of  the  higher  civil  service  had  ever  heard  his 
name. 

As  respects  amendments  in  committee  and  final 
revision,  our  English  procedure  is  not  satisfactory. 
There  ought  to  be  some  means  of  correcting,  before  a 
measure  finally  passes,  those  inelegancies,  redundancies, 
and  ambiguities  which  the  process  of  amending  in  com- 
mittee usually  causes.  But  as  Parliament  has,  so  far, 
refused  to  allow  any  authority  outside  itself  to  alter 
the  wording  in  the  smallest  point,  all  that  can  be 
done  is  to  use  the  last  stage  of  the  bill  to  cure  such 
blemishes  as  can  be  discovered.  Doubtless  the  same 
difficulties  arise  here.  I  am  not  fully  informed  as  to 
how  they  are  dealt  with,  but  have  learnt  with  great 
interest  of  the  efforts  recently  made  in  Wisconsin,  under 
the  zealous  initiative  of  Mr.  McCarthy,  and  in  New 
York  State  also,  to  supply  by  a  bureau  of  legislation 
assistance  to  members  of  the  legislature  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  their  bills.  The  value  of  this  plan  seems  to  have 
been  fully  recognized  in  both  States,  and  the  example 
has  told  upon  five  other  States,  where  similar  arrange- 
ments are  now  made  by  State  authority  for  such  help. 
I  venture  hope  that  Congress  will  see  its  way  to  the 
creation  of  some  such  office  for  drafting  bills,  so  as  to 
provide  ampler  data  for  members  and  render  to  them 
such  legal  help  as  they  may  require. 


CONDITIONS  AND  METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION     89 

Now  let  us  come  to  the  Substance  of  legislation,  and 
start  from  two  propositions  which  everyone  will 
admit. 

1.  There  is  in  all  free  countries  a  great  demand  for 
legislation  on  all  sorts  of  subjects,  mainly  due  to  the 
changes  in  economic  conditions  and  to  the  impatience 
of  reformers  to   have   all   sorts  of  evils  dealt  with 
by  law. 

2.  The  difficulty  of  framing  good  laws  is  enormous, 
because  most  countries  are  now  occupied  not  merely 
in  the  comparatively  easy  task  of  repealing  old  laws 
which  hampered  the  action  of  the  citizens,  —  destruc- 
tion is  simple  work,  —  but  in  the  far  harder  task  of 
creating  a  new  set  of  laws  which  shall  use  the  power  of 
the  community  to  regulate  society  and  secure  the  ends 
which  reformers  and  philanthropists  desire.      Eighty 
years  ago  Europeans  thought  that  the  great  thing  was 
to  get  freedom  and  abolish  bad  laws.     When  they  had 
got  it  they  were  dissatisfied,  and  instead  of  simply  let- 
ting everybody  alone  to  work  out  his  own  weal  or  woe, 
on  individualist  principles,  they  presently  set  to  work 
to   forbid  many   things  which   had   been  previously 
tolerated  and  to  throw  upon  government  all  sorts  of 
new  functions,  more  difficult  and  delicate  than  those 
of  which  they  had  stripped  it. 

Whether  the  disposition  to  increase  the  range  of 
governmental  action  is  right  or  wrong,  I  am  not  here 
to  discuss.  The  current  is,  at  least  for  the  moment, 
irresistible,  as  appears  from  the  fact  that  it  prevails 


90       UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

alike  in  Continental  Europe,  in  England,  in  the  British 
colonies  and  in  the  United  States.  The  demand  for 
a  profusion  of  legislation  is  inevitable;  and  the  dif- 
ficulty of  having  it  good  is  undeniable.  In  what  does 
the  difficulty  consist  ?  In  three  things.  First,  of 
those  who  demand  legislation,  many  do  not  under- 
stand what  is  the  precise  evil  they  desire  to  cure,  the 
precise  good  they  seek  to  attain.  They  suffer  from 
discontent  but  cannot  diagnose  its  cause.  Secondly, 
when  they  can  trace  the  evil  to  its  source  they  seldom 
know  what  is  the  proper  remedy ;  those  who  agree  as 
to  the  end  differ  as  to  the  means.  Thirdly,  the  num- 
ber of  measures,  remedial  and  constructive,  called  for 
is  so  large  that  it  is  hard  to  select  those  most  urgently 
needed.  No  legislature  can  deal  with  all  at  once. 
Where  many  are  being  urged  at  the  same  time  by 
different  persons,  they  jostle  one  another,  and  like  peo- 
ple jammed  together  in  the  narrow  exits  of  a  theatre, 
they  move  more  slowly  than  if  they  were  made  to  pass 
along  in  some  regular  order. 

It  would  be  easy  to  suggest,  if  we  were  drawing  a 
new  constitution  for  a  new  community,  an  ideal  method 
of  securing  good  legislation  and  securing  it  promptly. 
But  we  have  actual  concrete  constitutions  and  govern- 
ments to  deal  with,  so,  instead  of  sketching  ideals, 
let  me  briefly  describe  the  actual  machinery  pro- 
vided in  the  United  States  and  in  Britain  for  passing 
statutes.  This  machinery  differs  materially  in  the 
two  countries. 


CONDITIONS  AND  METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION     91 

The  American  plan  starts  from  the  principle  that 
the  Legislative  Department  must  be  kept  apart  from 
the  Executive.  Accordingly,  the  administration  in  the 
National  and  in  the  State  governments  has  neither 
the  responsibility  for  preparing  and  proposing  measures 
nor  any  legally  provided  means  at  its  disposal  for  carry- 
ing them  through  Congress,  though  the  President  and 
the  State  governors  can  recommend  them,  and  may 
sometimes  by  an  adroit  use  of  their  influence,  or  by 
a  forcible  appeal  to  the  people,  secure  the  passing  of  a 
bill.  You  rely  on  the  zeal  and  wisdom  of  the  mem- 
bers of  Congress  to  think  out,  devise,  and  prepare  such 
measures  as  the  country  needs ;  on  the  committees  of 
your  assemblies  to  revise  and  amend  these  measures; 
on  the  general  sense  of  the  assemblies  and  the  judg- 
ment of  their  presiding  officers,  or  of  a  so-called  "steer- 
ing committee,"  to  advance  and  pass  those  of  most 
consequence.  But  should  there  not  happen  to  be  any 
member  or  group  of  members  who  does  these  things, 
or  who  does  them  well,  there  will  be  nobody  respon- 
sible to  the  people  for  a  failure  to  give  them  what 
they  need. 

We,  in  England,  have  been  led  by  degrees  to  an 
opposite  principle.  The  executive  is  with  us  primarily 
responsible  for  legislation  and,  to  use  a  colloquial  ex- 
pression, "runs  the  whole  show,"  the  selection  of  topics, 
the  gathering  of  information,  the  preparation  of  bills 
and  their  piloting  through  Parliament. 

I.  The  requisite  information  is  collected  by  the  de- 


92        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

partment  of  government  to  which  the  subject  belongs, 
and  frequently  the  way  is  paved  for  legislation  by 
means  of  Royal  Commissions  or  Departmental  Com- 
mittees appointed  to  take  evidence  and  report  upon 
topics  of  importance  which  need  legislation. 

II.  When  it  comes  to  the  actual  introduction  of  a 
measure,  the  work  of  determining  its  substance  is  done 
by  an  administrative  department  of  the  government 
and  the  drafting  by  the  government  draftsman  already 
referred  to.  The  department  supplies  the  matter  of 
the  bill,  the  latter  puts  it  into  shape.  Thus  both  prac- 
tical knowledge  of  the  subject  and  professional  skill 
for  giving  legal  form  to  the  measure  to  be  enacted,  are 
secured.  All  the  more  important  measures  of  each 
session  are  brought  in  by  the  Ministry  on  their  re- 
sponsibility as  leaders  of  the  majority  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  The  most  important,  including  those 
likely  to  raise  party  controversy,  are  considered  by 
the  Cabinet,  sometimes  also  by  a  Cabinet  committee, 
and  sometimes  at  great  length.  I  remember  one  case 
in  which  an  important  bill  was  altered  and  reprinted 
in  twenty-two  successive  drafts,  and  another  case  in 
which  a  large  and  controversial  bill  occupied  prac- 
tically the  whole  time  of  the  Cabinet  during  six  long 
sittings. 

Bills  brought  in  by  private  members  are  drafted 
by  themselves,  or  by  some  lawyer  whom  they  employ 
for  the  purpose.  Should  a  private  member  ask  a  Minis- 
ter or  a  department  for  assistance,  it  would  usually  be 


CONDITIONS  AND   METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION     93 

given  him,  assuming  that  the  department  approved  the 
end  in  view. 

III.  Once  the  bill  is  launched,  its  fate  depends  on  the 
amount  of  intelligent  care  the  Legislature  is  disposed  to 
give  it  and  the  amount  of  skill  the  Minister  in  charge 
shows  in  steering  the  boat  which  carries  its  fortunes. 
He  has,  of  course,  the  assistance  of  the  official  drafts- 
man and  sometimes  of  one  or  more  colleagues  in  pre- 
paring his  own  amendments  and  considering  those 
proposed  by  others.  He  must  try  to  get  time  enough 
reserved  for  its  passage,  the  disposal  of  time  resting 
with  the  government. 

The  practical  result  of  our  English  system  may  be 
summed  up  by  saying  that  it  secures  four  things : 

(1)  A  careful  study  of  the  subject  before  a  bill  is 
introduced. 

(2)  A  decision  by  men  of  long  political  experience 
which  out  of  many  subjects  most  need  to  be  dealt  with 
by  legislation. 

(3)  A  careful  preparation  of  measures,  putting  them 
into  the  form  in  which  they  are  most  likely  to  pass. 
That  may  not  be  always  the  best  form,  but  there  is  no 
use  in  offering  to  Parliament  something  too  good  for  such 
a  world  as  the  world  of  practical  politics  everywhere  is. 

(4)  The  fixing  upon  someone  of  responsibility  for 
dealing  with  every  urgent  question.    Whenever  an 
evil  has  to  be  dealt  with  or  a  want  supplied  by  the 
action  of  the  Legislature,  there  is  never  any  doubt  who 
shall  do  it.      The  government  has  got  not  only  to  pro- 


94        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

pose  something,  but  to  put  something  through,  the 
Minister  to  whom  it  belongs  having  it  in  charge  through 
all  its  stages.  A  government  which  neglects  to  bring 
in  the  measures  urgently  required,  or  fails  through 
weakness  to  pass  them,  suffers  in  credit ;  and  if  the 
matter  excites  exceptional  popular  interest  possibly 
may  be  turned  out  either  by  an  adverse  vote  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  or  by  the  people  at  the  next 
general  election. 

There  are  some  defects  in  the  English  system  of 
Parliamentary  legislation,  but  I  need  not  here  refer  to 
them,  for  they  do  not  affect  the  points  I  have  been 
stating,  but  arise  from  other  features  of  our  govern- 
ment. The  points  to  be  specially  emphasized  for  your 
consideration  are  that  we  provide  adequate  machinery 
for  the  preparation  of  measures,  and  that  we  make  a 
small  group  of  persons,  the  Cabinet,  responsible  for 
bringing  them  in  and  pushing  them.  This  fixing  of 
definite  responsibility  is  perhaps  the  chief  merit  of  the 
system. 

The  Cabinet  is  responsible  because  it  is  really  a 
working  committee  of  the  majority  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  which  is  itself  directly  chosen  by  the 
people.  The  business  of  the  majority  is  to  support 
the  Administration,  because  it  leads  them,  and  enjoy- 
ing their  confidence,  presumably  enjoys  that  of  the 
majority  of  the  nation.  If  the  majority  withdraw  their 
confidence,  the  Administration  falls. 

In  France  the  method  of  legislation  stands  half- 


CONDITIONS  AND   METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION    95 

way  between  the  American  and  the  English  methods. 
The  Ministry  studies  a  subject,  prepares  a  bill  dealing 
with  it,  and  launches  the  bill  into  the  Chamber. 
There,  the  bill  passes  into  the  hands  of  a  committee 
which  amends  and  perhaps  quite  remoulds  it,  then 
returning  it  to  the  Chamber  with  an  elaborate  report. 
In  the  Chamber  it  is  in  charge,  not  of  the  Minister 
who  proposed  it,  but  of  the  committee  reporter,  the 
Ministry  having  no  more  power  over  its  fortunes  than 
flows  from  the  fact  that  they  are  the  leaders  of  the 
majority  and  can  speak  in  its  support.  There  are 
also  many  bills  brought  in  by  private  members ;  and 
these  also  go  to  the  committees  and  have  apparently 
a  better  chance  than  the  bills  of  private  members 
have  in  England. 

Switzerland,  like  the  United  States,  but  unlike  France, 
has  no  Ministers  as  voting  members  of  either  Cham- 
ber, but  the  members  of  the  Administration,  which  con- 
sists of  seven  persons  elected  by  the  Legislature,  are 
allowed  to  speak  and  defend  their  policy  or  to  advo- 
cate a  measure  in  either  the  National  Council  or 
the  Senate. 

Both  these  intermediate  systems  lose  something  of 
the  momentum  which  the  responsibility  of  government 
for  legislation  gives  in  England,  but  they  also  reduce 
the  merely  party  opposition  which  it  has  to  encounter, 
while  they  give  to  the  preparation  and  passing  of  meas- 
ures the  advantage  of  the  cooperation  of  those  whose 
administrative  experience  enables  them  to  perceive 


96        UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

what  is  really  wanted  and  to  judge  how  it  had  best  be 
attained. 

Whether  it  is  possible  to  establish  in  this  country, 
consistently  with  the  provisions  of  the  Federal  and  the 
State  Constitutions,  any  scheme  by  which  the  Execu- 
tive can  be  rendered  more  helpful  to  the  Legislature  or 
by  which  Legislatures  can  be  organized  with  a  more 
authoritative  leadership,  and  can  more  completely 
supervise  the  Administration,  —  this  is  a  question  which 
well  deserves  your  consideration.  Scientific  method, 
which  has  been  applied  to  everything  else,  needs 
in  our  time  to  be  applied  more  fully  and  sedulously 
to  the  details  of  constitutional  and  political  organi- 
zation than  has  been  anywhere  yet  done.  How- 
ever, if  one  may  judge  from  the  recent  action  of 
your  States,  there  are  certain  changes  already  in 
progress.  The  sittings  of  Legislatures  have  been  made 
less  frequent  and  shorter ;  and  as  sessions  grow  shorter 
State  Constitutions  grow  longer.  Not  only  many 
subjects,  but  even  many  minor  details  of  legislation, 
have  been  withdrawn  from  the  Legislature  by  being 
placed  in  the  State  Constitution,  which  the  Legislature 
cannot  change.  Direct  legislation  by  the  people  finds 
increasing  favour.  Some  reformers  demand  power  for 
Congress  to  deal  with  topics  which  formerly  were  left 
entirely  to  the  State.  There  is  talk  of  amending  the 
Federal  Constitution. 

Now  let  me  try  to  illustrate  how  scientific  method 
may  be  applied  to  the  constructive  part  of  legislation 


CONDITIONS  AND   METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION    97 

and  the  arrangements  of  Legislatures.  It  may  be 
applied  to  the  collection  of  data.  The  facts  on  which 
laws  ought  to  be  based  need  to  be  gathered,  sifted, 
critically  examined.  When  studying  the  experiments 
made  in  other  countries,  not  merely  the  text  of  the  laws 
but  their  practical  working  also  needs  to  be  studied. 

Take  such  subjects  as  the  tariff  and  the  law  of  cor- 
porations. Although  in  no  other  country  have  cor- 
porations raised  such  large  and  difficult  problems  as 
their  growth  has  created  here,  other  countries  have, 
like  you,  been  obliged  to  keep  them  under  some  con- 
trol, and  to  prevent  them  from  establishing  oppressive 
monopolies.  Everyone,  except  the  monopolist,  wishes 
to  check  or  expunge  monopolies,  but  nobody  wants  to 
substitute  a  meddling  officialism.  How  to  steer  be- 
tween these  two  evils  is  no  easy  problem,  and  needs 
careful  enquiry,  with  an  examination  of  the  laws  of 
other  countries. 

Wherever  there  exists  a  system  of  customs  duties 
meant  to  protect  domestic  industries,  it  becomes  neces- 
sary to  ascertain  how  each  duty,  whether  on  raw 
materials  or  on  the  manufactured  article,  operates 
upon  the  manufacturer,  the  dealer,  the  consumer ;  and 
the  more  complex  and  all-embracing  a  tariff  is,  so 
much  the  greater  is  this  need.  Both  these  subjects 
are  beyond  the  knowledge  and  the  skill  of  the  ordinary 
legislator  in  any  country.  They  need  special  study  by 
persons  of  exceptional  knowledge.  The  same  thing 
holds  true  of  railroads,  of  mines,  of  factories,  of  sanita- 


98       UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

tion,  of  irrigation,  of  forest  conservation,  and  many 
other  topics  of  current  interest.  All  must  be  ap- 
proached in  a  scientific  way,  using  the  results  of  the 
experience  of  other  countries. 

Methods,  too,  have  to  be  studied  as  well  as  facts. 
To  devise  and  apply  sound  methods  of  legislation  is 
equally  a  matter  requiring  careful  study  and  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  systems  which  have  succeeded  elsewhere. 
I  have  ventured  to  suggest  to  you  that  the  British 
system  deserves  your  study  in  two  points.  One 
touches  the  distinction  to  be  drawn  between  the  work 
proper  to  a  supreme  legislative  body,  and  that  which 
is  better  left  to  some  administrative  or  judicial  author- 
ity, making  rules  under  a  power  delegated  by  the  Legis- 
lature. Another  relates  to  the  still  more  important 
distinction  between  bills  relating  to  local  and  personal 
matters  and  those  which  designed  to  affect  the  general 
law  of  the  land.  The  more  these  local  matters  in 
which  the  pecuniary  interests  of  persons  or  corpora- 
tions are  involved  can  be  kept  apart  from  politics,  the 
better.  They  are  usually  fitter  for  a  sort  of  investiga- 
tion, judicial  in  its  form,  though  not  necessarily  con- 
ducted by  lawyers.  To  take  them  out  of  the  ordinary 
business  of  a  legislature  saves  legislative  time,  while  it 
removes  temptation.  It  sets  the  members  of  a  legisla- 
tive body  free  to  deal  with  the  really  important  general 
issues  affecting  the  welfare  of  the  people  which  are 
now  crowding  upon  them.  It  helps  them  to  appeal  to 
the  people  upon  those  general  issues  rather  than  in 


CONDITIONS  AND  METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION     99 

respect  of  what  each  member  may  have  done  for  the 
locality  he  represents.  Many  of  your  statesmen  have 
told  me  that  in  those  States  where  dissatisfaction  with 
the  conduct  of  legislatures  is  expressed,  that  disap- 
proval is  chiefly  due  to  their  handling  of  local  and 
personal  bills. 

Let  me  sum  up  hi  a  few  propositions,  generally  appli- 
cable to  modern  free  nations,  the  views  which  I  have 
sought  to  bring  before  you.  . 

I.  The  demand  for  legislation  has  increased  and  is 
increasing  both  here  and  in  all  civilized  countries. 

II.  The  task  of  legislation  becomes  more  and  more 
difficult,  owing  to  the  complexity  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion, the  vast  scale  of  modern  industry  and  commerce, 
the  growth  of  new  modes  of  production  and  distribution 
that  need  to  be  regulated,  yet  so  regulated  as  not  to 
interfere  with  the  free  play  of  individual  enterprise. 

III.  Many  of  the  problems  which  legislation  now 
presents  are  too  hard  for  the  average  members  of  legis- 
lative bodies,  however  high  their  personal  ability,  be- 
cause they  cannot  be  mastered  without  special  knowl- 
edge.    (It  may  be  added  that  in  the  United  States  a 
further  difficulty  arises  from  the  fact  that  legal  skill  is 
often  required  to  avoid  transgressing  some  provision 
of  the  Federal  or  a  State  Constitution.) 

IV.  The  above  conditions  make  it  desirable  to  have 
some  organized  system  for  the  gathering  and  examina- 
tion of  materials   for  legislation,   and  especially  for 
collecting,  digesting,   and  making  available  for  easy 


ioo     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

reference  the  laws  passed  in  other  countries  on  subjects 
of  current  importance  and  an  account  of  the  results 
obtained  thereby. 

V.  In  order  to  secure  the  pushing  forward  of  meas- 
ures needed  in  the  public  interest,  there  should  be  in 
every  Legislature  arrangements  by  which  some  definite 
person  or  body  of  persons  becomes  responsible  for  the 
conduct  of  legislation. 

VI.  Every  Legislature  has  in  our  days  more  work 
thrown  on  it  than  it  can  find  time  to  handle  properly. 
In  order,  therefore,  to  secure  sufficient  time  for  the 
consideration  of  measures  of  general  and  permanent 
applicability,  such  matters  as  those  relating  to  the  de- 
tails of  administration  or  in  the  nature  of  executive 
orders  should  be  left  to  be  dealt  with  by  the  adminis- 
trative department  of  government,   under  delegated 
powers,  possibly  with  a  right  reserved  to  the  Legisla- 
ture to  disapprove  regulations  or  orders  so  made. 

VII.  Similarly,  the  more  detailed  rules  of  legal  pro- 
cedure ought  to  be  left  to  the  judicial  department  or 
some  body  commissioned  by  it,  instead  of  being  regu- 
lated by  statute. 

VIII.  Bills  of  a  local  or  personal  nature  ought  to  be 
separated  from  bills  of  general  application  and  dealt 
with  in  a  different  and  quasi-judicial  way. 

IX.  Arrangements  ought  to  be  made,  as,  for  in- 
stance, by  the  creation  of  a  drafting  department  con- 
nected with  a  Legislature  or  its  chief  committees,  for 
the  putting  into  proper  legal  form  of  all  bills  introduced. 


CONDITIONS  AND  METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION     101 

X.  Similarly,  a  method  should  be  provided  for  recti- 
fying in  bills  at  the  latest  stage  before  they  pass  into 
law  such  errors  in  drafting  as  may  have  crept  into  them 
during  their  passage. 

XI.  When  any  bill  of  an  experimental  kind  has  been 
passed,  its  workings  should  be  carefully  watched  and 
periodically  reported  on  as  respects  both   the  extent 
to  which  it  is  actually  enforced  (or  found  enforcible) 
and  the  practical  results  of  the  enforcement.    A  de- 
partment charged  with  the  enforcement  of  any  act 
would  naturally  be  the  proper  authority  to  report. 

XII.  In  order  to  enable  both  the  Legislature  and 
the  people  to  learn  what  the  statute  law  in  force  actually 
is,  and  thereby  to  facilitate  good  legislation,  the  statute 
law  ought  to  be  periodically  revised,  and  as  far  as  pos- 
sible so  consolidated  as  to  be  brought  into  a  compact, 
consistent,  and  intelligible  shape. 

I  venture  to  submit  these  general  observations  be- 
cause to-day  there  is  everywhere  an  unusual  ferment 
over  economic  and  social  questions  and  a  loud  de- 
mand for  all  sorts  of  remedies,  some  of  them  crude, 
some  useless,  some  few  possibly  pernicious.  Here,  in 
the  United  States,  this  ferment  takes  a  form  conditioned 
by  your  constitutional  arrangements  and  your  political 
habits.  There  seems  to  be  in  many  quarters  a  belief 
that  the  State  governments  cannot  deal  with  some  of 
the  large  questions  that  interest  the  whole  country. 
Yet  there  is  also  a  fear  to  disturb  the  existing  balance 
of  powers  and  functions  between  the  State  authorities 

LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


102      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

and  the  National  government.  There  is  a  feeling  that 
evils  exist  which  governments  ought  to  deal  with,  and  for 
dealing  with  which  the  existing  powers  of  governments 
ought  to  be  extended.  Yet  there  is  also  a  reluctance 
to  multiply  officials  and  a  dread  of  anything  approach- 
ing the  bureaucratic  paternalism  of  Continental  Eu- 
rope. We  are  hovering  between  discontent  and  doubt. 
The  reforming  spirit  runs  so  strong  that  it  would  sweep 
off  their  feet  any  people  which  had  not,  as  you  have, 
become  attached  to  their  old  institutions.  So,  again, 
there  is  a  disposition  to  criticize  State  governments  and 
city  governments,  and  to  appeal  to  good  citizens,  as 
voicing  the  best  public  opinion,  to  step  in  and  do  by 
voluntary  organizations  whatever  useful  work  those 
governments  are  failing  to  do.  But  how  is  public  opin- 
ion to  be  organized,  concentrated,  focussed  ?  Who  are 
the  persons  to  give  it  that  definite  and  authoritative 
expression,  directed  to  concrete  remedies,  which  will 
enable  it  to  prevail  ?  These  are  some  of  the  problems 
which  appear  to  be  occupying  your  minds,  as,  under 
different  forms,  they  occupy  us  in  Europe.  They  will, 
doubtless,  like  other  problems  in  the  past  which  were 
even  harder,  be  all  solved  in  good  time,  solved  all  the 
better  because  there  is,  here  in  America,  little  of  that 
passion  which  has  at  other  times  or  in  other  countries 
overborne  the  voice  of  reason. 

Meantime,  as  there  is  evidently  a  good  deal  of  legis- 
lation before  you,  every  improvement  in  the  machinery 
of  legislation  and  the  conditions  of  legislation  that  can 


CONDITIONS  AND  METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION     103 

be  made  is  worth  making,  every  light  that  the  ex- 
perience of  other  countries  can  suggest  is  worth 
receiving  and  using. 

I  once  listened  to  an  address  on  Improvements  needed 
in  Modern  Education,  delivered  by  an  eminent  man  of 
science.  He  began  by  proving  to  us  that  those  of  his 
scientific  brethren  who  assigned  to  our  earth  a  life  of 
only  three  or  four  million  years  were  entirely  mistaken, 
for  there  was  every  reason  to  believe  it  would  last 
twice  or  thrice  that  length  of  time.  From  this  he 
drew  the  conclusion  that  it  really  was  worth  while, 
with  this  long  future  before  us,  to  attempt  fundamental 
reforms  in  our  educational  system.  We  who  heard  him 
thought  that  even  with  only  a  few  thousands  of  years  to 
look  forward  to,  reforms  would  be  worth  making.  So 
to  you  I  will  say  that  without  venturing  to  look  even 
thousands  of  years  ahead,  there  is  before  us  such  a 
prospect  of  an  increasing  demand  for  legislation  that  it 
is  well  worth  while  to  secure  by  every  possible  device 
the  efficiency  of  our  legislative  machinery. 

The  great  profession  to  which  you  belong  has  a 
special  call  to  exert  in  this  direction  its  influence,  which 
has  often  been  exerted  for  the  benefit  of  the  nation. 
You  know  such  weak  points  as  there  may  be  in  the 
existing  legislative  machinery.  You  know  them  as 
practical  men  who  can  apply  practical  remedies.  If 
you  see  a  public  benefit  in  separating  different  classes 
of  bills  and  treating  the  special,  or  local  and  personal, 
bills  in  a  different  way  from  the  public  ones,  you  can 


104     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

best  judge  how  this  should  be  done.  You  have  daily 
experience  of  the  trouble  which  arises  from  obscurities 
or  inconsistencies  in  the  statutes  passed,  of  the  waste- 
ful litigation  due  to  the  uncertainty  of  the  law,  with 
all  the  expense  and  vexation  which  follow.  You  are, 
I  hear  on  all  hands,  not  satisfied  with  the  criminal  pro- 
cedure in  many  of  your  States.  These  are  matters 
within  your  professional  knowledge.  You  can,  with 
the  authority  of  experts,  recommend  measures  you 
deem  good,  and  remonstrate  against  those  that  threaten 
mischief;  and  I  understand  that  remonstrances  pro- 
ceeding from  the  Bar  are  frequently  effective. 

Some  cynical  critics  have  suggested  that  the  legal 
profession  regard  with  equanimity  defects  in  the  law 
which  may  increase  the  volume  of  law  suits.  The  tiger, 
it  is  said,  cannot  be  expected  to  join  in  clearing  away 
the  jungle.  This  unappreciative  view  finds  little  sup- 
port in  facts.  Allowing  for  the  natural  conservatism 
which  the  habit  of  using  technical  rules  induces  in 
lawyers,  and  which  may  sometimes  make  them  over- 
cautious in  judging  proposals  of  change,  they  have, 
both  here  and  in  England,  borne  a  creditable  part  in 
the  amendment  of  the  law.  It  is  a  mistake  to  think 
they  profit  by  its  defects.  Where  it  is  clear  and  definite, 
where  legal  procedure  is  prompt  and  not  too  costly, 
men  are  far  more  ready  to  resort  to  the  Courts  for  the 
settlement  of  their  disputes.  It  is  the  prospect  of  un- 
certainty, delay,  and  expense  that  leads  them  to  pocket 
up  their  wrongs  and  endure  their  losses.  Even,  there- 


CONDITIONS  AND  METHODS  OF  LEGISLATION     105 

fore,  on  the  lower  ground  of  self-interest,  the  Bar 
(except  perhaps  a  few  of  its  least  desirable  members) 
does  not  gain  by  a  defective  state  of  the  law.  But 
apart  from  this,  every  man  who  feels  the  dignity  of  his 
profession,  who  pursues  it  as  a  science,  who  realizes 
that  those  whose  function  it  is  thoroughly  to  under- 
stand and  honestly  to  apply  the  law,  are,  if  one  may 
use  the  somewhat  highflown  phrase  of  a  great  Roman 
jurist,  the  Priests  of  Justice,  —  every  such  man  will 
wish  to  see  the  law  made  as  perfect  as  it  can  be.  So, 
too,  whoever  realizes,  as  in  the  practice  of  your  pro- 
fession you  must  daily  do,  how  greatly  the  welfare  of 
the  people  depends  on  the  clearness,  the  precision,  and 
the  substantial  justice  of  the  law,  will  gladly  contribute 
his  knowledge  and  his  influence  to  furthering  so  excel- 
lent a  work.  There  is  no  nobler  calling  than  ours, 
when  it  is  pursued  in  a  worthy  spirit. 

Your  profession  has  had  a  great  share  in  moulding 
the  institutions  of  the  United  States.  Many  of  the 
most  famous  Presidents  and  Ministers  and  leaders  in 
Congress  have  been  lawyers.  It  must  always  hold  a 
leading  place  in  such  a  government  as  yours.  You 
possess  opportunities  beyond  any  other  section  of  the 
community  for  forming  and  guiding  and  enlightening 
the  community  in  all  that  appertains  to  legislation. 
Tocqueville  said  eighty  years  ago :  "  The  profession  of 
the  law  serves  as  a  counterpoise  to  democracy."  We 
should  to-day  be  more  inclined  to  say  that  after  having 
given  to  democracy  its  legal  framework,  it  keeps  that 


io6     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

framework  in  working  order  by  elucidating  the  prin- 
ciples which  the  people  have  laid  down  in  constitutions. 
To  you,  therefore,  as  an  organized  body  of  lawyers,  one 
may  fitly  address  these  observations  on  legislative 
methods  drawn  from  the  experience  of  Europe.  We  live 
in  critical  times,  when  the  best  way  of  averting  hasty 
or  possibly  even  revolutionary  changes  is  to  be  found 
in  the  speedy  application  of  remedial  measures.  Both 
here  and  in  Europe  improvements  in  the  methods  of 
legislation  will  not  only  enable  the  will  of  the  people 
to  be  more  adequately  expressed,  but  will  help  that 
will  to  express  itself  with  temperance  and  wisdom. 

What  is  legislation  but  an  effort  of  the  people  to  pro- 
mote their  common  welfare  ?  What  is  a  Legislature  but 
a  body  of  men  chosen  to  make  and  supervise  the  work- 
ing of  the  rules  framed  for  that  purpose  ?  No  country 
has  ever  been  able  to  fill  its  legislatures  with  its  wisest 
men,  but  every  country  may  at  least  enable  them  to 
apply  the  best  methods,  and  provide  them  with  the 
amplest  materials. 

The  omens  are  favourable. 

Never,  I  think,  since  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  has 
there  been  among  the  best  citizens  of  the  United  States 
so  active  a  public  spirit,  so  warm  and  pervasive  a  de- 
sire to  make  progress  in  removing  all  such  evils  as 
legislation  can  touch.  Never  were  the  best  men,  both 
in  your  legislatures  and  in  the  highest  executive  posts, 
more  sure  of  sympathy  and  support  hi  their  labours 
for  the  common  weal. 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON:  THIRD  PRESIDENT 
OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  FOUNDER 
OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA 

DELIVERED  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA  ON  FOUNDER'S  DAY, 
APRIL  13,  1908. 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON:  THIRD  PRESIDENT 
OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  FOUNDER 
OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA 

DELIVERED  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA  ON  FOUNDER'S  DAY, 
APRIL  13,  1908. 

No  one  can  stand  here  without  thinking  much  and 
wishing  to  say  much  about  Thomas  Jefferson,  the 
founder  of  this  famous  University,  and  next  to  George 
Washington  one  of  the  two  or  three  most  remarkable 
men  that  Virginia  has  given  to  the  United  States  and 
to  the  world.  Yet  I  must  refrain  from  attempting 
to  describe  his  striking  personality.  Not  that  there  is 
anything  to  deter  me  personally  or  officially  from 
attempting  the  task.  To-day  nothing  need  prevent  the 
representative  of  the  great  grandson  of  King  George  the 
Third  from  paying  a  tribute  to  the  gifts  and  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  draftsman  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. Nor  ought  I  forget,  in  this  connection,  to 
remind  you  that  Jefferson  was  in  his  later  days  the  dis- 
interested advocate  of  the  most  friendly  relations  with 
England,  the  policy  of  which  he  had  so  often  opposed. 
But  hours,  rather  than  the  few  minutes  at  my  disposal, 
would  be  needed  to  do  justice  to  a  character  so  varied 
and  so  complex,  to  a  career  connected  with  so  many 
great  events  and  entangled  into  the  web  of  so  many 

109 


no     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

personal  and  political  controversies.  Moreover,  in 
painting  the  portrait  it  would  not  be  right  to  give  the 
lights  without  giving  also  the  shadows ;  and  this  is  not 
the  place  in  which  one  could  bring  oneself  to  speak  any- 
thing but  praise  of  the  illustrious  founder  of  an  illustri- 
ous institution. 

It  is  easy  to  pick  holes  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, and  to  decry,  as  one  of  your  own  distinguished 
men  did,  its  "glittering  generalities."  But  under  the 
rhetoric  and  the  overbold  and  overbroad  assertions  of 
doctrine  it  contains,  there  is  a  condensed  and  concen- 
trated force  which  few  documents  have  equalled,  and 
which  accounts  for  the  immense  power  it  has  exerted. 
There  is,  however,  I  may  say,  one  matter  on  which  all 
are  agreed  whether  or  no  they  approve  the  principles  and 
the  doings  of  Jefferson.  He  was  a  man  of  a  wonderfully 
vigorous  and  many-sided  activity.  Scarcely  a  subject 
of  enquiry  lay  outside  of  the  range  of  his  versatile  in- 
tellect. Whether  you  like  him  or  not,  you  cannot  help 
being  attracted  by  him.  Whether  you  think  his  in- 
fluence on  American  politics  and  thought  to  have  been 
in  the  mam  wholesome  or  pernicious,  you  must  admit 
that  influence  to  have  been  pervading  and  permanent. 
How  far  it  is  still  a  really  effective  influence,  now  that 
the  conditions  of  the  United  States  have  become  so  dif- 
ferent from  those  which  surrounded  him,  I  will  not 
attempt  to  determine.  His  writings  are  no  longer 
widely  read;  his  name  is  more  often  on  the  lips  than 
are  his  ideas  fresh  in  the  recollection  of  those  who  pro- 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  in 

fess  themselves  his  disciples  and  seek  to  conjure  with  his 
authority.  But  that  men  should  still  call  themselves 
his  disciples  and  should,  nearly  a  century  after  his 
death,  claim  to  be  maintaining  his  traditions,  is  a  re- 
markable tribute  to  his  gifts,  and  a  remarkable  evidence 
of  the  power  he  exerted  in  his  own  time  upon  the  great 
party  that  still  looks  back  to  him  as  its  founder. 

He  had  a  lively  interest  not  only  in  human  affairs 
but  also  in  all  matters  of  natural  history,  an  interest 
which  sometimes  led  him  into  odd  hypotheses,  as  when 
he  conjectured  that  the  bareness  of  the  Western  prairies 
which  were  being  explored  in  his  day  was  due  to  the 
action  of  the  mastodons,  —  the  remains  of  those  pri- 
meval monsters  had  been  recently  discovered  —  who 
had  devoured  all  the  trees.  But  this  sort  of  interest 
strikes  us  as  being  all  the  more  remarkable  because  he 
was  in  a  notable  degree  a-man  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
His  whole  way  of  thinking  is  unlike  our  way  of  to-day, 
and  we  might  say  that  compared  with  such  contempo- 
raries as  Bentham,  Burke,  Alexander  Hamilton,  and  still 
more  if  he  be  compared  with  such  much  younger  con- 
temporaries as  Goethe  and  Coleridge,  Jefferson  is 
almost  archaic.  Yet  having  a  bright,  keen,  inventive 
mind,  which  played  freely  round  many  subjects,  he 
was  sometimes  in  advance  of  his  time,  and  hit  upon 
ideas  characteristically  modern. 

Of  all  Jefferson's  ideas  and  projects  none  lay  nearer 
to  his  heart  and  none  deserve  such  unqualified  praise 
as  his  faith  in  education  and  his  efforts  to  diffuse  it. 


112      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

He  desired  to  establish  in  Virginia  a  scheme  of  general 
elementary  instruction  and  to  create  therewith  a 
system  of  upper  secondary  schools  corresponding 
broadly  to  the  grammar  schools  of  England,  though 
with  a  less  purely  classical  curriculum,  and  then  to 
complete  the  fabric  by  a  University  whose  aims  should 
be  commensurate  with  all  human  knowledge  and 
which  should  recognize,  both  in  the  variety  of  its 
studies  and  in  the  range  of  choice  allowed  among 
those  studies,  as  well  as  in  the  absence  of  ecclesiastical 
control  and  even  of  coercive  discipline,  those  prin- 
ciples of  liberty  which  he  held  so  dear. 

It  was  a  fine  and  fertile  conception.  It  does  all  the 
more  credit  to  Jefferson  because  nearly  all  the  col- 
leges of  the  United  States  were  in  those  days  classical 
or  mathematical  academies  attached  to  particular 
denominations  and  with  a  narrow  range  of  subjects, 
drilling  their  pupils  thoroughly,  but  drilling  them  on 
old-fashioned  methods.  Ardently  interested  in  all 
sorts  of  studies,  natural  as  well  as  civil  or  humanistic, 
Jefferson  desired  a  University  which  should  take,  as 
Bacon  said,  all  knowledge  to  be  its  province,  and  should 
provide  instruction  hi  every  subject  that  men  sought 
to  study.  This  view  of  a  university  —  the  old  true 
view  of  those  early  Middle  Ages  when  universities 
first  arose  but  when  there  were  few  subjects  to  study 
—  had  been  almost  forgotten.  We  are  so  familiar 
with  it  now  that  we  scarcely  realize  how  novel  it 
was  when  propounded  by  Jefferson,  and  how  much 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  113 

it  transcended  the  common  notions  of  his  own  times 
when,  in  England,  Oxford  and  Cambridge  were  just 
beginning  to  awake  from  their  long  torpor,  days  during 
which  it  had  been  left  to  the  Universities  of  Scotland 
to  keep  ablaze  the  sacred  torch  in  Britain.  Jefferson 
lit  the  torch  afresh  in  the  South.  In  1779  he  tried  to 
secure  a  scheme  for  establishing  popular  education.  In 
1794  he  sought  to  transfer  bodily  to  Virginia  the  whole 
faculty  of  the  University  of  Geneva,  threatened  by  the 
progress  of  the  Revolution  in  France,  a  really  brilliant 
idea,  which  ought  to  have  been  carried  out,  for  the  gam 
to  America  would  at  that  time  have  been  greater  than 
the  loss  to  Geneva.  Never  thereafter  did  he  desist  from 
his  efforts,  till  in  1819  the  Legislature  passed  an  act, 
which,  while  providing  primary  schools,  crowned  the 
edifice  by  making  an  appropriation  for  the  University 
of  Virginia.  You  remember  his  own  words,  "Our 
University,  the  last  of  my  mortal  cares  and  the  last 
service  I  can  render  to  my  country." 

Jefferson  carried  further  than  any  other  man  of  equal 
ability  and  equally  large  practical  experience  has  done, 
for  we  need  not  place  in  the  category  of  practical  men 
the  contemporary  visionaries  of  France,  a  faith  in  the 
politicial  perfectibility  of  mankind.  He  believed,  or  at 
least  he  frequently  declared,  because  we  cannot  be  sure 
that  all  he  said  represented  his  permanent  convictions, 
that  the  greatest  evil  from  which  men  suffered  was  the 
control  of  other  men.  He  liked  to  call  that  control 
Tyranny,  but  the  language  he  sometimes  used  was  ap- 


U4     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

plicable  not  merely  to  a  despotic  and  irresponsible  power 
but  to  many  other  kinds  of  authority.  He  would  appear 
to  have  thought  that  liberty  was  so  much  the  best  thing 
in  the  world  that  with  enough  of  it  all  human  affairs 
would  go  well,  and  he  so  heartily  distrusted  authority 
as  to  conceive  that  insurrections  were  needed  every  now 
and  then  to  check  the  misdeeds  of  rulers. 

When  one  reads  Jefferson's  writings  and  examines 
his  conduct,  considering  on  the  one  hand  his  faith  in 
the  people,  the  average  uninstructed  people,  of  his 
day,  and  on  the  other  hand  his  high  sense  of  the  value 
of  knowledge  and  his  constant  efforts  to  spread  uni- 
versity instruction,  three  questions  present  themselves 
to  our  minds  —  questions  of  permanent  interest  for 
all  students  of  politics. 

The  first  of  these  questions  is,  How  far  is  it  true 
that  the  people  are  sure  to  go  right  ?  As  you  here  would 
express  it  in  familiar  terms,  Is  the  average  man  — 
the  farmer  or  the  artisan  —  "fit  to  run  a  democracy"  ? 
He  is  always  being  told  so  on  public  platforms.  But  is 
he  really  so  ?  and  do  those  who  tell  him  so  always  believe 
what  they  say  ?  If  freedom  alone  is  enough  to  enable  a 
people  to  govern  themselves  well,  that  is  to  say,  if  the 
impulses  of  man  are  preponderatingly  good,  if  the  masses 
may  be  trusted  to  know  their  own  true  interest,  and 
to  select  the  proper  means  to  secure  it,  the  average  man 
ought  to  be  able  to  do  so.  Yet  Jefferson  evidently  had 
his  misgivings.  Though  he  refrained  from  the  condem- 
nation which  he  ought  to  have  passed  on  the  excesses 


THOMAS   JEFFERSON  115 

committed  by  some  of  his  French  Revolutionary  friends, 
he  knew  well  enough  that  a  great  deal  more  than  the 
abolition  of  monarchy  and  "aristocracy"  was  needed  to 
secure  good  government;  and  his  own  experience  in 
office  was  amply  sufficient  to  show  him  how  many  knots 
there  are  that  the  "average  man"  cannot  untie. 

This  question  is  so  large  that  I  must  not  attempt  to 
discuss  it  here.  I  am  content  to  commend  it  to  your 
reflection  as  one  of  the  most  momentous  and  funda- 
mental questions  of  politics  that  has  ever  occupied 
men's  minds.  We  are  always  getting  fresh  light  upon 
it  every  year,  and  from  every  part  of  the  world  where 
power  has  been  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  multitude. 
It  has  appeared  in  a  somewhat  new  form  hi  the  exten- 
sion which  men  seek  to  give  to  the  principle  of  direct 
legislation  by  the  institutions  of  the  Initiative  and  the 
Referendum.  The  amount  of  truth  contained  in 
Jefferson's  sanguine  view  of  human  nature  is  really  the 
basic  problem  of  all  politics  and  of  all  government, 
which  men  are  continually  trying  to  solve,  and  no 
doubt  we  have  advanced  further  towards  a  knowledge 
of  its  conditions  than  had  the  founders  of  your  republic 
and  of  the  French  Republic  of  those  days,  for  the  world 
has  had  a  much  ampler  experience  of  popular  govern- 
ments, or  at  least  of  governments  claiming  to  be  popular. 
That  experience  ranges  downward  from  republics  so 
well  governed  as  Switzerland  and  the  Orange  Free 
State  to  republics  of  the  class  to  which  Nicaragua  and 
Hayti  belong. 


Ii6      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

A  second  question  suggested  by  Jefferson's  ideas  and 
efforts  is  this:  What  ought  to  be,  and  what  has  usually 
been,  the  effect  of  education  on  the  highly  educated 
man  so  far  as  politics  are  concerned  ?  Have  knowledge 
and  training  been  found  to  give  him  a  deeper  sympathy 
with  the  people  and  a  greater  fitness  for  leading  the 
people,  or  do  they  rather  cut  him  off  from  the  masses, 
making  him  detached,  perhaps  supercilious,  possibly 
even  scornful  or  cynical  ? 

The  question  I  put  to  you  is  not  that  which  is  often 
debated  in  Europe,  though  seldom  here,  whether  the 
masses  of  the  people  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  wealthier 
and  educated  class  on  the  other,  are  more  generally 
likely  to  be  right  —  that  is,  to  be  shewn  by  the  result 
to  have  been  right  —  in  their  attitude  on  political  ques- 
tions. It  is  rather  this  question :  What  is  the  effect 
of  the  highest  education,  coupled  with  superior  intel- 
lectual gifts,  on  a  man's  political  attitude  and  ten- 
dencies ?  Will  it  tend  to  increase  or  to  reduce  his  faith 
in  popular  government  ? 

You  may  say  that  this  will  depend  upon  his  tempera- 
ment, whether  he  is  hopeful  and  buoyant,  or  timid  and 
despondent.  No  doubt  temperament,  which  itself  de- 
pends largely  on  physical  health,  does  make  a  difference. 
But  the  average  of  cheerful  and  gloomy  temperaments, 
or  of  bad  and  good  digestions,  is  pretty  much  the  same  in 
the  best  educated  and  the  least  educated  classes,  so  the 
element  of  temperamental  difference  may  be  eliminated. 

Instead  of  trying  to  discover  a  priori  what  sort  of 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  117 

influence  high  intellectual  capacity  and  a  store  of  knowl- 
edge might  be  expected  to  have  on  a  man's  political 
tendencies,  let  us  see  what  has  in  fact  been  the  attitude 
of  such  gifted  men  towards  the  politics  of  their  own 
countries.  We  shall  find  plenty  of  instances  on  both 
sides.  If  you  take  those  republics  of  antiquity  which 
the  contemporaries  of  Jefferson  were  so  fond  of  talking 
about,  you  will  find  some  great  thinkers  on  the  side 
of  democracy  and  some  against  it.  This  happened  also 
in  modern  Europe.  In  England,  for  instance,  Milton, 
Locke,  Addison,  Adam  Smith,  Bentham,  Romilly, 
Mackintosh,  were  in  their  days  more  or  less  on  the  popu- 
lar or  reforming  side,  while  Hobbes,  Swift,  Bolingbroke, 
David  Hume,  Samuel  Johnson,  were  on  the  other. 
Some  great  men,  such  as  Burke,  Coleridge,  and  Words- 
worth began  in  the  one  camp  and  ended  in  the  other, 
altering  their  position  as  life  went  on  under  what  people 
call  the  teaching  of  events. 

Is  there  then  no  general  principle  to  be  discovered 
affecting  the  attitude  or  sympathies  of  leading  thinkers, 
and  are  they  divided  between  Liberals  and  Conserva- 
tives just  like  other  men  ? 

Let  me  suggest  to  you  such  a  principle,  the  hint  of 
which  comes  to  me  from  what  we  have  seen  happen  in 
Europe  during  the  last  fifty  years. 

Fifty  years  ago  there  were  in  Continental  Europe 
no  free  governments  except  in  some  small  States, 
Switzerland,  Holland,  Belgium,  and  the  Scandinavian 
countries.  In  some  countries,  such  as  Russia,  Austria, 


n8     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

the  whole  of  Italy,  except  Piedmont,  and  to  some  ex- 
tent in  France  under  Louis  Napoleon's  sway,  there  ex- 
isted not  only  arbitrary  rule  but  an  administration  which 
was  oppressive  and  generally  inefficient.  In  Prussia, 
and  some  other  German  states,  the  administration 
was  good,  but  the  people  had  little  influence  upon  it. 
Now,  in  all  these  countries  at  that  tune  the  great 
majority  of  superior  minds  were  strongly  liberal. 
They  saw  the  evils  of  the  existing  system  more  clearly 
than  did  other  men  hi  their  own  rank  of  life ;  and 
whether  or  no  they  suffered  personally  from  misgovern- 
ment,  they  were  disgusted  by  it  and  anxious  to  over- 
throw it. 

To-day  in  Continental  Europe  the  position  is  dif- 
ferent. I  will  not  attempt  to  decide  to  which  side  the 
preponderance  of  men  distinguished  in  literature  and 
science  belongs.  Many  might  be  named  as  conspicu- 
ous on  each  side.  But  such  men,  taken  as  a  whole, 
are  more  generally  conservative  in  temper,  and  less 
heartily  democratic  in  opinion,  than  men  of  the 
same  type  were  in  1858.  Why  is  this?  Because 
the  facts  are  different.  The  liberty  formerly  sought 
has,  in  most  European  countries,  now  been  attained, 
while  the  administrative  evils  which  then  excited 
indignation  have  now  been  largely  removed.  Experi- 
ence has,  moreover,  disclosed  evils  incident  to  some 
forms  of  popular  government  which  were  not  and 
could  not  have  been  felt  while  arbitrary  government 
held  the  field,  and  because  demands  are  now  made 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  119 

in  the  name  of  liberty  for  further  changes,  political  or 
economical,  which  many  deem  to  be  dangerous.  De- 
mocracy has  not  brought  with  it  all  the  benefits  that 
were  expected,  so  there  has  been  a  certain  revulsion  of 
feeling  against  democratic  government.  Many  of  the 
most  powerful  minds  are  occupied  in  trying  not  to 
broaden  and  deepen  its  channel,  but  to  erect  barriers  that 
may  check  or  guide  its  flow.  But  if  arbitrary  govern- 
ment were  in  any  country  to  gam  once  more  the  upper 
hand,  a  thing  very  improbable  (so  far  as  we  can  look 
forward)  either  here  or  in  western  Europe,  no  doubt 
there  would,  among  the  thinkers  in  such  a  country,  be 
as  strong  a  tendency  away  from  it  back  toward  popular 
government  as  there  was  fifty  years  ago. 

History  will  supply  you  with  many  other  instances 
to  illustrate  this  law  of  a  reaction  of  great  thinkers 
against  the  tendencies  of  their  own  time.  Plato's 
criticism  of  the  Athenian  democracy  is  the  most 
familiar  instance.  The  explanation  is  simple  enough. 
Penetrating  minds  see  the  causes  of  the  evils  that  exist 
around  them  more  clearly  than  other  men  do,  and  ardent 
minds  have  a  stronger  impulse  to  sweep  away  those  evils. 
Men  of  imagination  have  a  finer  vision  of  what  the  world 
might  be,  and  incline  to  condemn  what  exists  because 
they  believe  in  the  possibility  of  something  better. 
Whatever  the  actually  existing  institutions  may  be,  they 
see  the  faults  of  those  institutions.  They  despise  the 
catchwords  of  a  dominant  party,  they  see  the  hollowness 
of  current  prejudices  and  the  weakness  of  many  a  cur- 


120     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

rent  theory;  they  condemn  the  tendency  to  push  a  prin- 
ciple to  extremes,  and  the  intoxication  with  its  own  power 
which  sometimes  seizes  upon  the  multitude.  The  same 
tendency  that  makes  the  great  thinker  in  an  age  of 
despotism  an  advocate  of  popular  government  may  make 
him  conservative  in  an  age  when  popular  government 
seems  to  him  to  be  in  danger  of  going  too  fast  or  too  far. 
So  we  may  say,  speaking  broadly,  that  the  philosopher 
and  the  idealist  tend  to  be  in  opposition  to  the  prevalent 
tendencies  of  their  own  time,  be  those  tendencies  what 
they  may.  Such  men  are  apt  to  be  hi  the  minority. 
One  might  almost  say  that  they  belong  rather  to  the 
future  (or  perhaps,  like  Dante,  to  an  idealized  past)  than 
to  the  present ;  because  it  is  they  who  are  most  exempt 
from  the  habit  of  blind  obedience  and  the  sway  of 
custom,  and  are  least  inclined  to  acquiesce  in  what 
exists  merely  because  it  exists. 

The  moral  of  this  is  —  a  moral  fit  to  be  stated  and 
reiterated  and  emphasized  in  a  University  —  that 
no  one  must  ever  be  afraid  of  being  in  a  minority. 
Where  at  any  rate  the  question  is  not  of  immediate 
action  hi  a  matter  lying  within  the  competence  of  the 
average  man,  for  in  such  things  the  average  man  may 
fairly  claim  to  prevail,  but  a  question  requiring  wide 
knowledge  or  serious  and  independent  thought,  he 
who  is  hi  a  minority  is  at  least  as  likely  to  be  right  as 
he  who  is  in  a  majority.  The  majority  must  no  doubt 
prevail,  for  no  means  has  been  discovered  of  weighing 
as  well  as  counting  votes.  But  to  prevail  and  to  be 


THOMAS   JEFFERSON  121 

right  are  not  the  same  thing;  and  in  a  democracy 
men  must  never  be  dissuaded,  because  they  have  been 
out-voted,  from  continuing  to  assert  their  convictions. 
Obey  the  majority  while  they  are  the  majority,  but 
do  not  for  a  moment  suppose  that  because  they  are  the 
majority  they  are  right. 

Thus  the  finest  kind  of  mind  may  be,  according  to 
the  circumstances  of  his  time,  either  a  liberal  or  a 
conservative,  a  man  who  cries  "  Forward  "  or  a  man  who 
cries  "Walk  warily."  But  he  will  usually  be  one  who 
rises  above  the  passions  and  prejudices  of  the  moment, 
who  refuses  to  follow  the  crowd,  who  is  not  moved  by 
popular  cries.  It  is  well  that  this  should  be  so,  — 
provided  always  that  the  detachment  of  the  indepen- 
dent thinker  does  not  go  so  far  as  to  put  him  out  of 
touch  with  the  sentiment  of  his  country  and  so  prevent 
him  from  serving  it.  The  great  thinker  who  tries  to 
be  also  a  good  citizen  will  have  enough  sympathy  with 
his  fellow-men  to  see  that  he  must  adapt  his  counsels 
to  their  needs,  and  must,  instead  of  soaring  above 
them,  place  himself  on  their  level,  and  speak  to  them 
in  a  language  they  can  understand.  He  ought  to  be 
independent ;  he  must  not  stand  apart  in  isolation. 

This  brings  me  to  the  third  question,  which  a  reflec- 
tion upon  Jefferson  and  his  faith  in  university  education 
suggests.  What  should  a  university  do  for  its  students 
in  the  way  of  fitting  them  for  a  life  of  learning  or  a  life 
of  public  service  ?  That  it  should  give  them  knowledge 
is  obvious  enough.  But  it  should  also  give  them  what 


122      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

is  even  better  than  knowledge;  that  is,  Wisdom,  —  by 
which  I  mean  the  power  to  apply  an  intelligent  criti- 
cism to  facts  and  ideas,  to  look  at  things  all  round,  to 
know  how  to  get  principles  out  of  facts,  and  to  test 
the  worth  of  ideas  by  their  conformity  to  facts. 

It  should  also  teach  them  public  spirit  and  the  love 
of  truth. 

Public  spirit  is  often  spoken  of  as  a  moral  virtue. 
That  it  is,  —  but  it  is  a  virtue  which  intellectual 
training  may  help  to  form.  The  function  of  Philosophy 
and  History  is  so  to  enlarge  our  minds  that  we  may 
see  how  each  man's  highest  interest,  conceived  in  its 
true  moral  aspect,  is  bound  up  with  the  public  weal, 
and  how  nations  and  states  prosper  or  decline  just 
in  proportion  as  the  public  interest  prevails  in 
their  government  or  as  that  interest  is  allowed  to 
be  overborne  by  the  selfish  interest  of  classes  or  of 
individuals. 

Still  more  evidently  is  it  the  duty  of  a  university  to 
instil  a  devotion  to  truth.  Knowledge  and  wisdom 
and  practical  shrewdness,  a  sense  of  how  to  adapt 
means  to  ends,  are  needed  in  all  the  walks  of  life  any 
one  may  have  to  tread.  But  in  whatever  work  is 
to  be  done  for  the  permanent  benefit  of  mankind,  be 
it  for  learning  or  science,  be  it  for  theology  or  poli- 
tics; and  also  for  all  the  higher  kinds  of  practical 
achievement  that  the  service  of  the  Church  or  the  State 
demands,  the  one  vital  and  supreme  requisite  is  a  de- 
sire to  find  the  truth  and  a  resolve  to  follow  it  when 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  123 

found.  The  temptation  that  most  easily  besets  us 
all  is  to  let  personal  interest,  or  vanity,  or  party  spirit, 
or  friendship,  or  even  the  sense  of  beauty,  distract  us 
from  the  pursuit  of  truth.  Now  the  habit  of  seeking 
truth,  though  it  is  rightly  counted  among  the  moral 
virtues,  is  a  habit  which  University  training  can  help 
us  to  acquire  through  the  examples  set  by  great  scholars 
and  historians  and  investigators  of  nature,  and  by  the 
practice  of  critical  methods  applied  with  scrupulous 
accuracy.  It  is  the  ever-present  note  of  the  real  scholar, 
the  real  philosopher,  the  real  historian. 

The  bitterest  critics  of  Thomas  Jefferson  have  never 
denied  his  patriotic  devotion  to  the  interests  of  Virginia 
nor  ever  disparaged  his  zeal  for  the  spread  of  knowl- 
edge. It  was  the  union  in  him  of  these  two  passions 
that  prompted  his  life-long  labors  for  the  establishment 
of  your  University.  There  are  no  excellences  which 
he  would  have  more  desired  that  it  should  implant  in 
its  students.  Nor  has  its  career  belied  his  hopes. 
The  University  of  Virginia  has  always  sent  forth  men 
eminent  both  in  learning  and  in  the  field  of  public  life. 
She  has  never  condescended  to  the  superficial  or  the 
meretricious.  Her  standards  of  attainment  have  been 
high  and  her  scholars  have  maintained  them.  She 
has  been  also  a  home  of  patriotism  and  civic  virtue. 
Many  of  her  sons  have  done  splendid  service  for  the 
nation,  and  have  reflected  glory  upon  this  seat  of  learn- 
ing and  on  the  Commonwealth  of  Virginia.  May  this 
oldest  of  all  your  States,  the  mother  of  Washington 


124     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

and  of  so  many  other  illustrious  figures  in  American 
history,  ever  hold  high  that  banner  of  freedom  and 
enlightenment  which  her  founders  planted  on  the 
shores  of  the  New  World  three  hundred  and  one 
years  ago. 


MISSIONS   PAST  AND   PRESENT 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  THE  LAYMEN'S  MISSIONARY  CONVENTION 
AT  CHATTANOOGA,  MAY  21,  1907. 


MISSIONS   PAST  AND   PRESENT 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  THE  LAYMEN'S  MISSIONARY  CONVENTION 
AT  CHATTANOOGA,  MAY  21,  1907. 

THE  history  of  Christian  Missions  combines  the 
interest  which  attaches  to  striking  characters  and 
strange  adventures  with  that  of  tracing  a  long  world 
movement  which  has  passed  through  various  phases, 
and  has  in  each  of  them  affected,  and  been  affected  by, 
events  of  the  first  moment.  A  comprehensive  view  of 
that  history,  connecting  it  with  the  general  progress 
on  the  one  hand  of  geographical  discovery  and  on  the 
other  of  religious  thought  and  practice,  would  be  a 
theme  worthy  of  a  philosophic  historian.  It  is,  how- 
ever, only  with  the  most  recent  phases  of  missionary 
work  that  I  can  attempt  to  deal  in  this  address. 

In  the  ancient  world  there  was,  before  Christianity 
appeared,  neither  religious  propaganda  nor  religious 
persecution.  Each  tribe,  each  region,  had  its  own 
special  or  local  gods,  and  each  respected  the  local 
gods  of  the  others.  If  now  and  then  some  invad- 
ing general  pillaged  a  sanctuary  of  the  deities  of 
another  country,  it  was  avarice  alone  that  prompted 
him.  Opinion  condemned  him,  and  he  was  likely — • 
so  men  believed  —  to  receive  speedy  punishment  at  the 

127 


128      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

hands  of  the  offended  powers.  Thus  the  worship  of  one 
set  of  gods  did  not  exclude  the  worship  of  another  set, 
for  all  deities  were  deemed  entitled  to  respect,  each  in 
his  own  jurisdiction.  Similarly,  since  no  faith  claimed 
to  be  exclusively  true  or  of  universal  authority,  its 
votaries  had  no  reason  for  trying  to  convert  others  to 
it  by  persuasion,  nor  for  persecuting  those  who  adhered 
to  their  local  worships.  Even  when  the  people  of  Israel 
denied  the  existence  of  any  God  but  their  own,  they 
did  not  seek  to  proselytize,  because  it  was  to  Israel 
alone  that  Jehovah  had  revealed  himself. 

With  the  advent  of  Christianity  the  scene  changed. 
It  claimed  to  be  the  only  true  religion,  and  sought  to 
save  a  world  lying  in  wickedness  by  denouncing  and 
expunging  all  the  worships  of  the  heathen.  Devotion 
to  God  and  love  for  perishing  men  alike  made  the 
propagation  of  the  faith  its  first  duty.  Hence  it 
encountered  a  hostility  never  previously  aroused  by 
any  other  religion.  The  first  missions  were  immediately 
followed  by  the  first  persecutions.  After  three  cen- 
turies of  missionary  progress,  frequently  interrupted 
by  relentless  severities,  Christianity  triumphed.  Two 
centuries  later,  being  then  supported  by  the  whole 
power  of  the  State,  it  began  to  repress  first  the  linger- 
ing devotees  of  paganism,  then  those  who,  differing 
from  the  ruling  orthodoxy,  had  been  branded  as  here- 
tics by  Councils  of  the  Church.  So  were  ushered  in 
those  ages  of  persecution  which  in  Spain  and  Spanish 
America  lasted  down  to  the  days  of  our  grandfathers. 


MISSIONS  PAST  AND  PRESENT  129 

There  is  a  striking  passage  in  Lucretius  in  which 
he  laments  the  evil  wrought  by  superstition,  referring 
to  the  instances  of  human  sacrifice,  rare  as  these  were 
in  Greece  or  Rome,  though  common  enough  at  Car- 
thage, and  dwelling  on  the  gloom  cast  upon  life  by 
the  fear  of  suffering  after  death.  He  wrote  before 
religious  persecution  had  been  dreamt  of.  How 
much  darker  would  have  been  the  picture  a  poet 
might  have  drawn  in  those  later  centuries  when  it 
was  deemed  a  duty  to  extirpate  heresy  by  the  sword 
and  the  faggot ! 

One  may  distinguish  three  chief  phases  among  those 
through  which  missions  have  passed.  In  the  first, 
which  began  with  the  Apostles,  and  was  continued 
through  a  long  line  of  glorious  saints,  Christianity 
went  forth,  trusting  entirely  to  the  power  and  the  pur- 
ity of  its  own  teachings.  It  promised  salvation  through 
Christ  and  through  a  life  led  in  obedience  to  his  pre- 
cepts. St.  Patrick  preached  to  the  Gael  of  Ireland, 
St.  Columba  to  the  Picts  of  North  Britain,  St.  Augus- 
tine to  the  heathen  of  Kent,  St.  Boniface,  St.  Columban, 
St.  Gall,  and  many  another  missionary  from  the  British 
Isles  to  the  heathen  of  Germany.  Some  of  them  died 
a  martyr's  death.  All  of  them  went  out  like  sheep 
among  wolves,  trusting  only  to  the  help  and  blessing 
of  God. 

In  the  eighth  century  a  change  came.  The  Prankish 
Charles  the  Great  carried  his  arms  against  the  pagan 
Saxons,  and  made  conversion  a  part  of  conquest  and 


130     UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

a  pledge  of  submission.  From  his  time  on  other 
Christian  warriors,  some  of  them  from  ambition,  some 
from  what  they  believed  to  be  piety,  spread  the  king- 
dom of  the  Cross  by  arms.  Olaf  Tryggyvason  in  Nor- 
way and  the  Crusaders  in  Palestine,  and  after  them  the 
Teutonic  knights  on  the  shores  of  the  Baltic,  gave  the 
choice  between  baptism  and  death.  So  did  the  Span- 
iards when  they  burst  into  the  New  World.  Wherever 
these  terrible  conquerors  went,  the  native  worships  were 
blotted  out  and  Christianity  enforced  at  the  sword's 
point.  They  were  continuing  beyond  the  ocean  the 
crusade  on  behalf  of  the  Faith  which  they  had  only 
just  completed  in  Spain  against  the  Moors. 

With  them,  however,  the  forcible  propagation  of  Chris- 
tianity practically  ended.  Neither  the  French  mis- 
sionaries on  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  Great  Lakes, 
nor  the  English  missionaries  like  John  Eliot  in  Massa- 
chusetts sought  the  aid  of  carnal  weapons.  The  earlier 
and  better  stage  in  which  the  Gospel  relied  on  its  own 
intrinsic  virtue  was  now  returning.  In  this  third  stage 
missions  have,  with  few  exceptions,  remained  ever  since ; 
but  it  is  still  worth  while  to  remember  into  what  un- 
Christian  conduct  misguided  zeal  drove  men  who 
thought  they  were  helping  Christianity. 

In  our  own  time  missions  entered  on  what  may  be 
called  a  fourth  stage,  in  which  their  aim  and  purpose  is 
differently  conceived.  We  have  learnt  to  distinguish 
more  carefully  between  different  kinds  of  non-Christian 
religions  and  to  recognize  the  good  features  that  belong 


MISSIONS  PAST  AND  PRESENT  131 

to  some  of  them,  especially  to  Buddhism  and  to 
Islam.  Time  was  when  the  success  of  a  mission  was 
measured  by  the  number  of  congregations  it  was  able 
to  form  in  a  heathen  country,  and  the  number  of  con- 
verts annually  added  to  the  fold.  But  this  is  now  no 
longer  deemed  the  chief  object  of  its  work,  and  the 
mere  public  profession  of  adherence  to  Christianity 
is  valued  only  when  it  is  believed  to  indicate  a  real 
and  permanent  change  of  life  and  mind. 

The  views  now  entertained  as  to  the  future  in  another 
world  of  those  who  pass  into  it  without  ever  having 
heard  the  Gospel  message,  are  less  despondent  than 
those  that  prevailed  among  Christians  eighty  years 
ago.  There  is  an  enlarged  conception  of  what 
is  meant  by  bringing  truth  and  light  to  the  peo- 
ple that  sat  in  darkness,  and  it  begins  to  be  felt 
that  what  is  needed  is  to  raise  the  whole  conception 
of  life  and  transform  the  character  by  implanting 
higher  ideals  which  will  cut  off  at  the  root  the  degrad- 
ing customs  of  pagan  life.  When  the  missionary  has 
to  deal  with  the  religions  of  the  more  civilized  non- 
Christian  peoples,  he  treats  with  respect  whatever  is 
best  in  the  moral  teachings  of  Buddha  or  of  Mohammed 
and  tries  to  meet  the  followers  of  Confucius  on  the 
ethical  ground  he  and  they  have  in  common,  feeling 
that  even  when  few  converts  are  made  much  good 
may  be  done  by  the  diffusion  of  elevating  ideas  and  of 
Christian  morality.  Even  such  usages  and  supersti- 
tions as  it  may  be  desired  to  extirpate  are  treated  more 


132     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

gently,  not  only  because  we  have  begun  to  feel  a  sort 
of  scientific  interest  in  these  survivals  of  primaeval 
custom,  but  because  it  is  seen  that  improvements 
come  best  when  they  come  from  within,  from  a  mind  and 
heart  that  has  been  awakened  to  a  higher  view  of  a 
Divine  Power,  and  of  man's  relation  to  it. 

These  changes  in  our  views  of  what  missions  may 
accomplish  and  what  methods  they  may  follow  are 
not  the  index  of  any  lessened  faith  or  slackening 
earnestness.  Preaching  is  not  the  only,  nor  always 
the  shortest,  way  to  the  end  desired.  I  remember  that 
when  Dr.  Livingstone,  after  several  short  journeys, 
finally  quitted  his  mission  station  to  enter  upon  that 
great  exploration  of  Africa  and  crusade  against  the 
slave  trade  which  have  given  him  a  place  among  the 
benefactors  of  mankind,  there  were  some  well-mean- 
ing but  small-minded  persons  who  censured  him  for 
deserting  his  proper  missionary  work.  But  in  a  few 
years  no  one  doubted  that  he  had  rendered  infinitely 
greater  services  to  the  world  and  to  Christianity  by  his 
journeys  and  the  light  he  threw  on  African  problems 
than  he  could  have  done  by  remaining  with  the  little 
Kaffir  congregation  to  which  he  ministered. 

Such  gatherings  as  the  Laymen's  Missionary  Move- 
ment has  been  holding  all  over  this  country  are  an  evi- 
dence that  there  is  no  decline  of  zeal  among  American 
Christians.  So  also  the  approaching  International  Con- 
gress in  Edinburgh  shows  that  the  denominational  nar- 
rowness and  rivalry  which  used  to  distract  the  efforts 


MISSIONS   PAST  AND   PRESENT  133 

of  missionary  organizations  has  given  place  to  a  frater- 
nal spirit  which  seeks  to  make  all  the  religious  bodies 
work  together,  aiming  not  at  uniformity  in  organi- 
zation, but  at  friendly  cooperation  in  a  common 
cause.  It  is  well  this  should  be  so,  for  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  time  we  live  in  make  the  claim  of 
missions  an  urgent  and  insistent  call  upon  all  these 
bodies.  It  is  of  that  urgency,  of  the  movements 
of  change  now  passing  on  the  world,  and  of  the 
need  there  is  for  prompt  and  united  action  before 
change  goes  further  that  I  desire  to  speak.  I  speak 
as  a  traveller  who  has  seen  missions  in  many  a 
foreign  country,  and  I  am  emboldened  to  speak  to 
you  by  remembering  that  nothing  has  done  more  to 
keep  the  hearts  of  Americans  and  Englishmen  close 
together  than  the  work  they  have  sought  to  do  in  the 
same  spirit  for  the  kingdom  of  God.  In  these  latest 
centuries  we  have  been  the  two  great  missionary  nations. 
Spanish  and  Portuguese  missionaries  did  an  immense 
work,  especially  in  the  sixteenth  century :  French  mis- 
sionaries an  immense  work,  especially  in  the  seven- 
teenth. Germans  and  Swiss  have  labored  effectually  in 
the  nineteenth,  but  your  and  our  peoples  have  perhaps 
done  the  most,  and  have  done  it  on  the  same  lines,  in 
the  same  faith,  following  the  same  principles,  always 
trusting  to  the  power  of  truth  and  not  to  force.  So 
the  traveller,  wherever  he  goes,  finds  American  and 
British  missionaries  always  working  side  by  side, 
always  ready  to  help  one  another. 


134     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

Missions  must  now  be  regarded  as  parts  of  a  great 
world  movement,  one  out  of  the  many  influences  which 
are  now  exercised,  more  powerfully  than  ever  before, 
by  the  civilized  upon  the  uncivilized  or  savage  peoples. 

The  world  has  grown  smaller ;  steam  and  electric- 
ity have  brought  its  parts  together;  and  as  the 
civilized  races  have  spread  out  over  its  surface,  there 
is  no  place  where  their  influence  is  not  felt,  so  that, 
with  the  exception  of  two  ancient  empires  in  the  East, 
nearly  every  part  of  the  world  has  been  brought  under 
the  control  of  some  of  the  civilized  white  races,  and 
even  those  empires  are  now  in  close  relations  with 
white  races.  Now,  that  is  a  new  phenomenon.  In 
the  midst  of  these  new  phenomena  missions  to  the  un- 
civilized races,  are  indispensable,  for  if  Christianity  is 
not  brought  to  bear  upon  them,  the  contact  may  make 
their  last  state  worse  than  their  first.  To  that  point  I 
shall  presently  return  and  shall  try  to  convey  to  you 
two  features  in  the  more  recent  history  of  missions  on 
which  it  seems  proper  to  dwell,  viz.,  the  causes  which 
retard  the  progress  of  Christianity  in  uncivilized  coun- 
tries, and  the  special  need  which  exists  at  this  mo- 
ment for  diffusing  it  there. 

Meantime,  let  me,  as  one  who  has  seen  many 
missions  in  many  parts  of  the  world,  bear  testi- 
mony to  the  splendid  work  which  is  being  done  in 
our  own  time  by  Christian  missionaries.  There 
have  not  been  any  nobler  examples  of  devotion  to 
duty,  of  self-sacrifice,  of  the  renunciation  of  the 


MISSIONS  PAST  AND  PRESENT  135 

ordinary  pleasures  and  joys  of  the  world  for  the 
sake  of  a  higher  calling,  than  those  which  our  mission- 
aries have  given  during  the  last  eighty  years.  Let  me 
pay  especial  tribute  to  the  work  which  is  being  done 
by  the  many  missions  of  this  country.  I  have  seen 
them  in  India,  where  their  work  is  admirable,  and 
where  some  of  your  missionaries  are  men  as  wise  as 
can  be  found  in  that  vast  country,  men  who  know  as 
much  about  India  and  are  as  much  worthy  to  be  lis- 
tened to  on  that  subject  as  any  men  to  be  met  there. 
No  better  evidence  than  theirs  can  be  desired  as  to 
the  working  of  British  rule  there,  for  they  can  regard 
its  action  impartially,  yet  with  perfect  comprehension; 
I  have  seen  them  also  in  various  parts  of  the  Turkish 
East,  where  they  are  placed  among  Mohammedans 
and  certain  ancient  non-Protestant  churches.  The 
Christian  peoples  of  the  East  have  suffered  terribly 
in  recent  years,  and  they  may  have  yet  a  great  deal 
to  suffer.  In  1895  and  1896  more  than  one  hundred 
thousand  Armenian  Christians  were  massacred  by  the 
orders  of  Sultan  Abdul  Hamid.  Many  of  them  were 
women,  many  might  have  saved  their  lives  if  they 
had  spoken  three  words  to  renounce  Christianity; 
yet,  like  the  martyrs  of  the  apostolic  age,  they  refused 
to  sacrifice  their  Christian  faith,  and  went  willingly  to 
death  for  the  sake  of  their  Lord  and  Master.  Among 
these  peoples  it  has  been  the  duty  of  your  American 
missionaries  to  labor,  not  proselytizing  but  befriending 
them  educationally  and  otherwise.  And  the  best  work 


136     UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

that  has  ever  been  done  among  them  has  been  done 
by  those  missionaries.  Whenever  the  English  friends 
of  the  Armenian  Chirstians  desired  to  know  what  was 
happening  in  Asiatic  Turkey,  whenever  we  desired 
to  find  some  means  of  relieving  the  famine-stricken 
and  down-trodden  people,  whenever  it  became  neces- 
sary to  ascertain  what,  if  anything,  could  be  done 
by  political  action  to  alleviate  the  sufferings  of  these 
oppressed  and  martyred  races,  I  have  always  found 
that  the  best  thing  to  do  was  to  turn  to  the  American 
missionaries.  And  I  have  often  heard  from  members 
of  the  ancient  Armenian  church  the  warmest  acknowl- 
edgment of  the  great  services  which  your  missionaries 
have  rendered  to  them. 

Now,  when  you  recall  the  splendid  work  which 
missions  have  done,  when  we  think  also  of  how  long 
they  have  been  at  work,  and  of  the  advantages  which 
those  who  come  forth  from  civilized  nations  ought  to 
possess,  are  you  not  sometimes  surprised  that  Christian- 
ity has  not  long  ago  overspread  the  whole  world  ?  Why 
is  it  that  more  progress  has  not  been  made  ?  Think 
of  the  beginnings  of  Christianity,  when  St.  Paul  and 
the  other  apostles  went  out  to  make  those  first  mis- 
sionary tours,  recorded  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 
They  went  out  few  in  number,  through  a  pagan  world, 
a  world  which  was  dominated  by  ancient  and  powerful 
religions,  where  all  authority  and  all  secular  powers 
were  on  the  side  of  the  old  religions,  and  where  before 
long  those  powers,  the  emperors  and  their  governors 


MISSIONS  PAST  AND  PRESENT  137 

and  other  officers,  put  forth  their  whole  strength  to 
resist  and  extinguish  Christianity ;  and  a  series  of  cruel 
persecutions  took  place,  extending  over  nearly  three 
centuries,  by  which  it  was  attempted  to  root  out  the 
new  religion  from  the  earth.  Those  persecutions  failed. 
Christianity  spread  itself  over  the  empire  against  all 
the  power  the  empire  could  put  forth,  and  made  its 
way  in  the  teeth  of  persecutions  until  at  last  it  grew 
so  strong  that  the  emperors  were  obliged  to  recognize 
it ;  and  from  that  time  forth  it  became  the  dominant 
religion  over  all  the  world,  except  fire-worshipping 
Persia,  that  the  Romans  knew.  It  did  that  work  hi 
three  centuries. 

Since  that  time  sixteen  hundred  years  have  passed, 
and  Christianity  has  had  most  of  the  material  forces 
of  the  world  on  its  side,  nearly  all  the  military  power, 
as  well  as  nearly  all  the  learning  and'civilization,  ex- 
cept during  a  comparatively  short  period  when  there 
was  more  literature  and  science  in  Musulman  than  in 
European  countries.  Why,  then,  has  not  Christianity 
succeeded  in  converting  the  whole  earth  ? 

That  is,  indeed,  a  question  worth  asking.  It  is  a 
question  you  have  doubtless  often  asked  yourselves. 
We  shall  do  better  to  reflect  on  what  we  have  not  ac- 
complished, and  try  to  discover  why  it  is  that  we  have 
failed,  than  to  exult  in  what  we  have  accomplished.  It 
may  be  that  we  shall  discover  some  of  the  causes  which 
have  weakened  us  and  prevented  us  from  obtaining, 
with  material  advantages  on  our  side,  what  the  apostles 


138     UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

and  their  successors  obtained  with  all  the  material 
forces  and  civil  powers  against  them.  I  am  going  to 
give  one  reason ;  it  is  only  one  of  several  reasons,  but 
it  is  a  reason  which  is  brought  forcibly  home  to  who- 
ever travels  in  uncivilized  countries  and  notes  the 
limited  success  attained  by  missions  in  places  where 
the  zeal  and  devotion  of  the  missionaries  are  evident. 

The  preaching  of  the  gospel  is  but  one  among  many 
forces  and  influences  which  have  been  brought  to  bear 
on  the  uncivilized  races  during  the  last  four  centuries, 
and  some  of  those  other  influences  have  largely  neu- 
tralized the  effect  of  the  gospel.  What  was  the  first 
thing  that  happened  when  the  Spaniards  and  the  Por- 
tuguese began  to  settle  hi  the  American  islands  and 
continents  ?  One  of  their  main  objects  was  to  convert 
the  heathen.  They  were  pious,  according  to  their 
lights,  and  quite  sincere  in  their  eagerness  to  spread  the 
faith.  They  took  out  a  great  many  friars  with  them, 
and  set  them  to  preaching.  The  cross  was  carried  up 
and  down  the  islands,  and  the  friars  preached ;  and  the 
natives,  whether  or  not  they  understood  and  believed, 
were  at  any  rate  baptized  and  compelled  to  attend 
mass  and  say  that  they  were  Christians.  The  native 
religions  or  superstitions  had  little  hold  on  these  poor, 
simple  savages  of  the  Antilles,  and  of  many  parts  of  the 
American  continents  also,  so  they  yielded  easily. 
The  Conquerors  thought  they  were  saving  souls, 
whether  by  persuasion  or  force ;  and  they  would  have 
thought  it  absurd  not  to  use  force  in  that  holy  war- 


MISSIONS  PAST  AND   PRESENT  139 

fare.  But  the  Conquerors  did  something  more  than 
this.  Though  the  friars  came  to  preach,  the  adven- 
turers who  swarmed  into  tropical  America  came  with 
a  fierce  greed  for  gold.  That  was  what  they  chiefly 
sought  in  the  New  World.  Finding  gold  ornaments 
among  the  people,  they  asked  where  they  came  from  ; 
they  searched  for  the  gold  mines,  and  put  the  natives 
to  work  in  them.  They  set  them  also  to  till  the  soil, 
and  those  weak,  simple-minded  aborigines,  accus- 
tomed to  raising  just  enough  food  to  support  them- 
selves, were  driven  to  work  under  the  stern  eye 
and  cruel  scourge  of  a  Spanish  taskmaster,  until  in 
the  island  of  Hispaniola  (now  Hayti  )and  in  the  Ba- 
hamas, the  whole  population  died  out  under  the  severi- 
ties of  the  Spanish  rule  within  thirty  or  forty  years 
after  the  discovery  of  the  islands.  The  same  thing 
happened  in  the  other  conquered  territories.  Wherever 
the  Spaniard  went  he  seized  the  land  of  the  people, 
reduced  them  to  what  was  virtually  slavery,  and 
forced  them  to  work  in  the  mines  or  till  the  soil  for 
him. 

That  was  probably  the  most  harsh  and  terrible  form 
which  the  contact  of  a  civilized  race  with  an  uncivilized 
ever  took.  It  ended  with  the  extermination  of  many 
a  native  tribe.  And  yet  something  of  that  kind, 
though  not  so  bad,  has  been  going  on  ever  since. 
Something  of  the  kind  is  going  on  in  the  South  Ameri- 
can forests  now.  Wherever  the  strong  races  who,  like  the 
Spaniards,  possessed  horses  and  firearms,  races  with  the 


140     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

appliances  of  civilization  at  their  command,  have  come 
into  contact  with  weaker  races,  that  sort  of  thing  has 
happened.  Everywhere  the  native  has  gone  to  the 
wall.  Sometimes,  where  the  native  race  was  weak,  it 
has  been  extinguished ;  it  dies  out  either  under  harsh 
treatment  or  under  the  diseases  which  the  white 
man  brings  with  him,  or  through  use  of  the  liquor 
which  he  has  supplied  to  them.  In  one  way  or  an- 
other the  native  races,  if  not  extinguished,  have  at 
any  rate  become  demoralized.  They  lose  those  native 
customs  which  governed  their  life,  and  experience 
shews  that  it  is  easier  to  acquire  the  vices  of  the  white 
man  than  to  imitate  his  virtues. 

I  do  not  wish  to  overstate  the  case.  I  do  not  deny 
that  some  of  these  evils  were  inevitable.  The  contact 
of  a  superior  civilized  race  with  a  barbarous  race  must 
always  bring  some  harm  to  the  weaker.  But  the  evils 
need  not  have  been  so  great  if  the  civilized  men  who 
went  among  the  natives  had  behaved  like  Christians. 
Unfortunately,  that  was  just  what  few  of  them  did. 
There  were  always  some  good  men  among  them  who 
tried  to  protect  the  natives,  even  some  laymen  among 
the  first  Spanish  conquerors  and  many  among  the 
clergy.  The  noble  Las  Casas  who  spent  his  life  in 
trying  to  protect  the  American  aborigines  was  only 
one  of  many  excellent  Spanish  churchmen.  But  the 
forces  of  rapine  and  avarice  and  that  sort  of  arrogant 
contempt  which  the  strong  man  feels  for  the  weak 
were  more  potent  forces.  Down  to  our  own  times 


MISSIONS  PAST  AND  PRESENT  141 

you  will  find  that  the  natives  suffered  far  more  than 
they  gained.  Their  land  was  taken  without  giving 
them  anything  for  it,  and  they  were  driven  away 
or  shot  down.  The  trader  who  went  among  them 
cheated  them,  and  did  what  was  even  worse:  he 
sold  them  vile  liquor  that  ruined  them  body  and 
soul.  Despite  all  the  efforts  made  in  recent  years, 
those  practices  go  on  in  some  places  still.  It  would 
have  been  a  good  thing  for  the  natives  if  the  art  of 
distillation  had  never  been  discovered.  It  was  only 
the  other  day,  after  whole  tribes  had  perished,  that 
we  awakened  to  a  sense  of  the  tremendous  evils 
wrought  among  native  peoples  by  the  sale  of  drink. 
It  does  harm  enough  among  white  people,  but  far 
more  among  a  savage  or  semi-civilized  race,  for  they 
are  not  seasoned  to  it,  as  in  a  certain  way  a  number  of 
our  own  populations  have  become,  and  they  have  less 
self-control  than  civilized  men.  It  works  like  poison 
upon  them  and  destroys  them. 

These  things  could  not  but  injure  and  retard  the 
work  of  Christianity.  How  was  it  possible  for  the 
natives  not  to  look  at  the  practice  of  the  white  man  as 
well  as  at  his  preaching  ?  The  missionary  represented 
a  religion  of  justice,  of  peace,  and  of  love.  But  with 
the  missionary  came  the  man  who  tried  to  take  away 
the  land  of  the  native  or  sold  him  worthless  goods  or 
intoxicated  him  with  his  liquor.  How  was  it  possible 
for  the  natives,  when  they  saw  these  men  who  called 
themselves  "Christians"  just  as  did  the  missionaries, 


142     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL   ADDRESSES 

not  to  be  struck  by  the  divergence  between  the  practice 
and  the  doctrines  of  this  new  religion  ?  The  saying  is 
attributed  to  some  African  prince  that  the  process  going 
on  in  his  country  was :  "First  missionary,  then  trader, 
then  army."  The  missionary  came  first,  and  well  it 
would  have  been  if  he  had  been  left  to  do  his  work 
alone.  But  before  the  missionary  had  succeeded  in 
Christianizing  the  people,  the  trader  came  to  undo  the 
missionary's  work. 

Even  where  the  white  man  does  not  rob  or  injure  the 
natives  there  is  something  in  his  attitude  when  he  finds 
himself  among  an  uncivilized  people  that  is  harsh 
and  unchristian.  He  acts  toward  them  as  if  they 
were  persons  to  whom  he  can  do  whatever  he  likes. 
Those  who  have  travelled  among  savages  or  semi- 
savages  will  know  what  I  mean  when  I  say  that  it 
takes  almost  the  temper  of  a  saint  to  keep  the  white 
man  from  treating  with  arrogance  or  scorn  a  people 
who  are  very  much  weaker  than  himself  and  who  fre- 
quently provoke  him  by  an  astonishing  slackness  or 
thoughtlessness  or  inconstancy  of  purpose.  Nothing 
but  a  sense  of  human  duty,  and  Christian  duty  can 
prevent  a  man  from  acting  harshly  or  unfairly  when 
he  is  placed  in  such  conditions.  No  doubt  the  natives 
often  give  provocation.  In  parts  of  Australia  and  in 
Tierra  del  Fuego  they  stole  the  sheep  that  had  been 
placed  upon  the  lands  that  once  were  theirs.  But  this 
does  not  excuse  the  settlers  who  went  out  in  parties 
to  shoot  them  down. 


MISSIONS  PAST  AND  PRESENT  143 

This  behaviour  and  this  attitude  of  the  stronger 
white  race  have  been  among  the  chief  obstacles  to 
the  advance  of  Christianity. 

There  were  times  when  the  governments  of  so- 
called  Christian  states  themselves  were  little  better 
than  the  adventurers  who  disgraced  the  Christian 
name.  The  long  perpetuation,  by  the  favour  of 
such  governments,  of  the  African  slave  trade,  the 
most  hideous  piece  of  cruelty  and  wrong  ever  per- 
petrated by  civilized  upon  uncivilized  men,  is  a  terri- 
ble instance.  It  has  been  only  in  the  last  sixty  or 
seventy  years  that  these  governments  have  awakened 
to  a  proper  sense  of  their  duties.  Most  of  them  have 
latterly  tried,  and  are  now  honestly  trying,  to  protect 
the  natives.  This  is  not  yet  the  case  in  all  parts  of  the 
world.  There  are  one  or  two  lamentable  exceptions. 
But  it  is  the  case  wherever  either  the  United  States  or 
Great  Britain  holds  sway.  Your  government  and  the 
British  government  are  doing  their  best  wherever  their 
flags  fly  to  protect  the  native  in  every  way  they  can. 
In  India  it  has  been  for  a  century  past  the  sole  and 
whole-hearted  object  of  the  English  government  to 
administer  absolutely  equal  justice  in  India  between 
the  European  and  the  native  and  to  give  the  native  as 
complete  a  protection  and  as  good  a  government  as 
the  circumstances  of  the  country  will  permit. 

But  even  where  the  government  performs  its  duty 
it  is  possible  for  the  private  adventurer,  or  the  trading 
corporation  behind  the  private  adventurer  that  sup- 


144     UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

plies  the  funds  and  does  not  watch  how  the  adventurer 
behaves,  to  do  a  great  deal  of  harm.  They  it  is  who 
discredit  Christianity.  While  the  missionary  is  preach- 
ing, the  adventurer  goes  on  cheating  the  native  or  oust- 
ing him  from  his  land,  sometimes  even  forcing  him  into 
a  sort  of  slavery,  and  punishing  him  if  he  fails  to 
fulfil  the  allotted  task,  and  the  trading  company  at 
home  draws  the  profits.  The  temptations  to  abuse 
strength  have  been  great  and  have  been  yielded  to. 
No  wonder  that  these  things  checked  the  advance 
of  Christianity.  No  wonder  that  it  spread  more 
rapidly  while  adversity  and  persecution  gave  it 
the  opportunity  to  show  the  distinctively  Christian 
virtues  of  faith,  constancy,  humility,  and  love  than  it 
did  when  all  the  powers  of  this  earth  were  on  its  side, 
that  it  advanced  faster  against  the  hostility  of  Roman 
emperors  like  Nero,  Decius,  and  Diocletian  than  it 
has  advanced  with  all  the  strength  of  civilization  behind 
it.  It  is  not  that  any  power  has  gone  out  of  the  gospel ; 
it  is  not  that  the  best  men  in  Christian  nations  were 
any  less  zealous ;  but  other  men  went  on  undoing  the 
missionary's  work  all  the  time  he  was  preaching. 

If  this  be  true,  what  is  the  duty  of  Christian  men 
to-day?  That  duty  certainly  is  not  to  ask  govern- 
ments to  spread  the  gospel  by  force.  No  more  action 
like  that  of  the  Spaniards  who  carried  the  scourge  and 
the  sword  while  the  friars  carried  the  crucifix.  You 
do  not  believe  that  the  blessing  of  God  will  rest  upon 
such  methods. 


MISSIONS  PAST  AND  PRESENT  145 

Neither  do  you  desire  that  governments  should 
give  any  political  support  to  missionaries.  The  more 
that  missions  are  kept  apart  from  political  authori- 
ties and  left  to  rely  on  themselves,  the  better.  What 
you  do  desire  is  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  civ- 
ilized governments  when  they  try  to  secure  for  the 
native  justice,  considerate  treatment,  full  protection 
against  the  craft  or  violence  of  the  adventurer. 

It  is  in  your  power  to  do  that.  Public  opinion  can 
strengthen  the  hands  of  the  governments;  it  can 
encourage  each  government  to  lay  down  and  carry  out 
rules  for  the  due  protection  of  the  native.  We  all  know 
that  the  United  States  government  desired  to  carry 
out  honestly  and  hi  the  right  spirit  such  a  policy 
even  when  the  Red  Indians  were  being  defrauded  of 
their  lands  or  of  the  supplies  given  them.  Your 
national  government  always  meant  to  do  right,  though 
it  was  not  always  able  to  supervise  its  agents. 

We  in  Britain  wish  to  do  the  same;  and  we  are 
always  appealing  to  our  government  and  assuring  them 
that  they  will  have  and  do  now  have  the  spirit  of  the 
British  public  behind  them  in  endeavouring  to  protect 
the  native.  And  if  there  are  still  parts  of  the  world 
in  which  the  natives  are  to-day  ill  treated,  let  us 
trust  that  the  public  opinion  of  America  and  of  Eng- 
land will  speak  out  and  will  demand  that  the  native 
races  everywhere  be  duly  cared  for  and  delivered  from 
oppression. 

Your  duty  does  not  end  with  subscribing  to  the  mis- 


146     UNIVERSITY  AND    HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

sionary  societies.  It  requires  you  to  watch  wherever 
over  the  world  the  advance  of  Christianity  is  being 
hindered  by  the  wicked  practices  of  white  men  to  see 
that  the  adventurer  and  the  trader  are  restrained  if  they 
wrong  the  natives  by  force  or  fraud,  and  absolutely  to 
prohibit  the  sale  of  liquor  to  the  natives.  The  natives 
ought  to  be  regarded  as  children,  and  have  the  measure 
both  of  care  and  of  tenderness  which  is  given  to  chil- 
dren, for  under  the  conditions  in  which  their  life  has 
been  passed,  they  cannot  be  expected  to  rise  quickly 
to  the  level  of  civilized  man. 

This  brings  me  to  the  other  point  which  I  desire. 

The  position  is  now  becoming  critical.  You  are 
often  told  —  and  you  are  told  with  truth  —  that  this 
is  a  critical  time  for  civilized  countries.  It  is  a  time 
when  there  are  all  sorts  of  new  ideas  hi  the  air,  a  time 
when  many  ancient  landmarks  have  been  removed,  and 
when  efforts  are  being  made  to  remove  even  those  that 
remain.  In  this  country  you  are  receiving  vast  new 
masses  of  population.  In  the  Old  World  new  social 
and  political  movements  have  begun  to  stir  up  even 
the  hitherto  most  stagnant  countries.  But  if  you 
look  beyond  Europe  and  America,  at  what  is  pass- 
ing among  the  savage  or  semi-civilized  races  of  man- 
kind, and  note  the  changes  which  have  come  upon 
them  within  the  last  fifty  years  and  which  are  tell- 
ing upon  them  now,  you  will  perceive  that  this  is 
perhaps  the  most  critical  moment  ever  seen  in  the 
history  of  the  non-Christian  nations  and  races,  a  mo- 


MISSIONS  PAST  AND  PRESENT  147 

ment  most  significant  in  its  bearing  on  their  future. 
The  races  of  European  origin  have  now  obtained  con- 
trol of  the  whole  world  (except  two  or  three  ancient 
Asiatic  states,  and  their  influence,  political  and  financial 
is  felt  far  more  deeply  than  ever  before  even  in  those 
parts  of  the  world  over  which  they  do  not  exercise  direct 
political  sway. 

While  our  material  civilization  is  permeating  every 
people,  our  ideas  and  the  example  of  our  institutions 
are  also  telling  as  never  before  upon  these  more  back- 
ward races.  In  half  a  century  or  less  that  which  we  call 
European  civilization  will  have  overspread  the  earth  and 
extinguished  the  organizations  and  customs  of  the 
savage  and  semi-civilized  tribes  or  nations.  The  native 
tribes  will  have  been  broken  up,  native  kingdoms  will 
have  vanished,  native  customs  will  have  gone ;  every- 
where the  white  man  will  have  established  his  influence 
and  destroyed  the  old  native  ways  of  life.  All  is 
trembling  and  crumbling  away  under  the  shock  and 
impact  of  the  stronger,  harder  civilization  which  the 
white  foreigners,  penetrating  everywhere  by  our  easier 
methods  of  transportation  by  land  and  sea,  have  brought 
with  them.  Things  which  have  endured  from  the  Stone 
Age  until  now  are  at  last  coming  to  a  perpetual  end, 
and  will  be  no  more.  They  will  vanish  from  the  face 
of  the  earth.  This  is  something  that  has  never  hap- 
pened before  and  can  never  happen  again. 

When  all  these  savage  and  semi-civilized  peoples 
have  lost  their  ancient  organizations,  their  ancient 


148     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

customs  and  their  ancient  beliefs,  they  will,  along  with 
these  things,  lose  also  their  ancient  morality,  such 
as  it  was,  which  had  its  sanctions  in  those  customs 
and  beliefs.  If  you  destroy  these,  their  morality  falls 
to  the  ground  and  is  gone,  and  they  are  left  with  noth- 
ing, adrift  upon  a  wide  and  shoreless  sea.  You  may 
say  that  their  customs  were  often  bad,  their  morality 
often  immorality.  That  is  true.  Much  of  it  ought 
to  disappear.  Yet  with  all  its  tolerance  of  vice  and 
all  its  degrading  practices,  it  had  in  some  ways  a 
certain  beneficial  action  upon  their  conduct.  Its 
sanctions  exercised  some  control  for  good.  It  fur- 
nished a  basis  for  the  conduct  of  life  better  than  the 
mere  unrestrained  impulse  to  the  gratification  of  every 
passion  and  desire.  It  prescribed  some  kinds  of  virtu- 
ous actions,  such  as  good  faith  (at  least  with  one  an- 
other), mutual  help  in  times  of  want,  hospitality,  and 
compassion  for  the  helpless.  There  are  savage  peo- 
ples who  have  these  virtues,  and  they  were  inter- 
twined with  supernatural  sanctions  which  are  now 
perishing. 

The  process  of  destruction  and  disintegration  which 
I  have  described  is  inevi table,  and  it  is  advancing 
swiftly.  If  we  measure  time  by  the  lifetime  of  a  man, 
the  end  may  seem  still  distant,  but  we  can  begin  to 
conjecture  the  date  of  its  arrival.  Already  there  are 
hardly  any  heathen  left  in  the  two  American  con- 
tinents (though  there  are  millions  of  aborigines  who 
are  not  Christians  in  any  effective  sense),  and  hardly 


MISSIONS  PAST  AND  PRESENT  149 

any  in  the  isles  of  the  Pacific.  Only  in  India  and  the 
East  Indian  archipelago,  and  in  South  Central  Africa 
and  parts  of  West  Africa  do  there  remain  any  large 
masses  of  idolatrous  or  spirit- worshipping  men.  Within 
less  than  two  centuries  the  whole  non-Christian 
world  may  be  practically  divided  between  Buddhism 
and  Islam,  and  although  the  latter  of  those  two 
great  faiths  is  still  spreading  in  parts  of  Africa  and 
Asia,  the  hold  of  both  upon  their  votaries  may  by 
that  time  have  been  sensibly  weakened. 

That  is  why  the  present  moment  is  so  critical  and 
so  precious.  If  these  peoples  are  losing  the  old  cus- 
toms and  beliefs  which  have  ruled  them  thus  far,  the 
time  has  come  to  give  them  something  new  and  bet- 
ter. Unless  they  receive  some  new  moral  basis  of 
life,  some  beliefs  and  motives  and  precepts  which 
can  appeal  to  their  hearts  and  rule  their  conduct,  can 
restrain  bad  impulses,  and  instil  worthy  conceptions 
of  life  and  duty  and  worship,  their  last 'state  may 
be  worse  than  the  first.  Having  overspread  the  world, 
and  taken  these  weaker  races  under  our  control,  we 
cannot  evade  the  responsibility  that  lies  upon  us  to 
think  and  to  care  for  them.  It  was  at  the  prompt- 
ing of  our  own  interests  that  we  of  the  white  races 
disturbed  their  ancient  ways  of  life,  for  we  went 
among  them,  some  few  doubtless  with  a  desire  to  do 
good,  but  the  great  majority  from  a  desire  to  make 
money  and  to  exploit  the  world's  resources  for  profit 
of  the  white  man.  Under  the  aegis  of  his  govern- 


150     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

ment,  he  is  taking  the  agricultural  wealth  from  the  soil, 
the  forests  from  the  hills,  and  the  minerals  out  of  the 
rocks,  all  for  his  own  benefit.  Of  all  this  wealth  noth- 
ing, except  perhaps  a  meagre  wage  for  manual  labour, 
goes  to  the  native. 

The  power  of  civilized  man  has  too  often  come  as 
a  crushing  force  in  a  destroying  hand.  Let  the  gospel 
of  Christ  come  to  these  races,  the  old  foundations 
of  whose  life  are  crumbling  away  beneath  them, 
not  as  the  mere  nominal  profession  of  those  who 
are  grasping  their  land  and  trying  to  profit  by 
their  toil,  but  accompanied  by  justice  and  tender- 
ness in  action,  and  recommended  by  example  as  well 
as  by  precept.  Let  it  come  as  a  beneficent  power 
which  can  fill  their  hearts  with  new  thoughts  and  new 
hopes,  which  may  become  a  link  between  them  and 
ourselves,  averting  that  strife  and  suffering  which  will 
otherwise  follow,  and  leading  them  gently  forward  into 
the  light.  Let  it  be  a  bond  between  all  races  of  man- 
kind of  whatever  blood,  or  speech,  or  colour,  a  sacred 
bond  to  make  them  feel  and  believe  that  they  and  we 
are  all  the  children  of  one  Father  in  heaven. 


THE  MISSION  OF   STATE  UNIVERSITIES 

COMMENCEMENT  ADDRESS  TO  THE  UNIVERSITY  OP  WISCONSIN  AT 
MADISON,  JUNE,  1908. 


THE  MISSION   OF   STATE  UNIVERSITIES 

COMMENCEMENT  ADDRESS  TO  THE  UNIVERSITY  or  WISCONSIN  AT 
MADISON,  JUNE,  1908. 

THIS  University  of  Wisconsin  in  which  we  are  met 
stands  by  common  consent  in  the  front  rank  among  the 
State  Universities  of  the  United  States.  It  is  younger 
than  some  of  them,  but  inferior  to  none  in  the  width 
of  its  curriculum  and  the  ability  of  its  staff,  and  it  is 
perhaps  more  conspicuously  identified  then  any  other 
with  the  political  life  of  the  State.  This  is  therefore 
a  fitting  place  in  which  one  who  delivers  a  Commence- 
ment Address  may  choose  for  his  theme  the  various 
origins  from  which  universities  have  sprung,  the 
various  forms  in  which  they  have  organized  themselves, 
and  the  peculiar  features  and  functions  which  belong 
to  the  American  State  Universities,  that  "latest  birth 
of  time." 

A  university  is,  in  its  simplest  form,  nothing  more 
than  an  aggregation  of  teachers  and  learners.  It 
was  in  that  way  that  the  earliest  universities  of  modern 
Europe  began.  Salerno,  Bologna,  Paris,  were  the 
first  cities  in  which  crowds  of  learners  gathered  round 
a  few  eminent  teachers  of  medicine  (in  the  first),  of  law 
(in  the  second),  of  theology  and  dialectics  (in  the  third). 
Such  too  were  the  beginnings  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge. 

153 


154      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

In  each  of  those  trading  towns  situated  upon  rivers, 
then  the  chief  avenues  of  commerce,  a  concourse  of 
students  formed  itself  round  a  few  learned  men,  and 
presently  grew  to  vast  dimensions.  These  universities 
were  not  founded  by  any  public  authority,  but  founded 
themselves,  springing  up  naturally  out  of  the  desire 
for  knowledge ;  and  hence  we  in  England  describe  our 
two  Universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  as  being 
"corporations  at  common  law,"  i.e.  deriving  their 
legal  quality  as  corporate  bodies  from  ancient  custom 
which  antedates  the  time  of  legal  memory.  The  same 
thing  had  happened  in  the  Eastern  World.  Where  Is- 
lam reigned,  schools  sprang  up  in  the  great  mosques  like 
that  famous  one  of  El  Azhar  in  Cairo  which  still  draws 
thousands  of  students  of  all  ages  from  all  parts  of  the 
Musulman  world.  Later  on  in  the  Middle  Ages 
sovereigns  began  to  establish  such  places  of  learning. 
The  Emperor  Frederick  II  set  up  one  at  Naples  in 
A.D.  1225,  Pope  Gregory  IX  another  at  Toulouse  in 
1233.  The  first  in  the  Germanic  Empire  was  that  of 
Prague,  founded  by  Pope  Clement  VI  and  Emperor 
Charles  the  Fourth  in  1347-1348 ;  and  others  followed, 
such  as  that  famous  school  at  Heidelberg  which  the 
Elector  Palatine  Rupert,  and  Pope  Urban  VI  at  his 
request,  set  up  hi  1386. 

Popes  had  also  assumed  the  right  of  founding  uni- 
versities, and  with  good  right,  because  their  ecclesias- 
tical jurisdiction  embraced  all  Europe,  and  they  were 
called  upon  to  see  that  a  due  supply  both  of  trained 


155 

theologians  and  trained  lawyers  was  always  forth- 
coming. In  Scotland  the  Universities  of  Glasgow  and 
Aberdeen,  for  instance,  were  founded  by  papal  bulls, 
but  when  after  the  breach  between  England  and 
Rome  Queen  Elizabeth  desired  to  create  a  university 
in  Ireland  she  did  it  herself  by  a  royal  charter.  In 
modern  Europe,  since  the  conception  has  grown  up 
that  a  university  is  an  institution  entitled  to  grant 
degrees,  and  since  degrees  themselves  have  obtained 
more  or  less  legal  recognition,  it  is  now  understood 
that  nothing  less  than  some  public  authority,  such  as 
either  a  royal  grant  or  a  statute,  can  create  a  univer- 
sity. It  is  thus  that  the  eight  new  universities  re- 
cently established,  and  the  most  recent  of  them  per- 
haps too  hastily  established,  in  England,  viz.,  London, 
Durham,  Manchester,  Liverpool,  Leeds,  Birmingham^ 
Sheffield,  and  Bristol,  have  been  constituted. 

Here  in  the  United  States  you  have  allowed  the 
widest  freedom,  so  colleges  and  universities,  great  and 
small,  have  sprung  up  all  over  the  country  in  a  crop 
almost  too  abundant.  Harvard  and  Yale  were  the 
foundations  of  private  benefactors,  though  their  States 
subsequently  aided  them.  Many  other  colleges  owe 
their  origin  to  religious  denominations.  But  the  most 
interesting,  and  certainly  the  most  peculiar  and  char- 
acteristically American,  type  has  been  that  of  the  uni- 
versity founded  and  supported  and  governed  by  the 
State. 

Before  proceeding  to  consider  how  this  scheme  of 


156     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

State  support  and  control  has  worked,  let  me  try  to 
give  you  a  brief  view  of  the  universities  of  the  three 
countries  whose  conditions  and  ideas  most  resemble 
yours  in  America.  I  mean  Germany,  England,  and 
Scotland,  —  countries  in  each  of  which  the  university 
has  played  a  great  part  and  has  not  only  illustrated 
the  character  of  the  nation  but  done  much  to  form  that 
character. 

The  universities  of  Germany  have,  during  the  last 
seventy  years,  led  the  world  in  the  completeness  of 
their  teaching  organization,  in  the  amplitude  of  the 
provision  of  instruction  in  every  branch  of  knowledge 
which  they  make,  and  in  the  services  they  render  to 
the  prosecution  of  research.  In  these  respects  they 
have  set  an  example  to  the  world,  an  example  whose 
value  is  recognized  in  the  United  States,  from  which  so 
many  students  have  gone  to  Germany.  The  level  of 
learning  among  the  teachers,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  per- 
haps higher  than  anywhere  else  :  and  it  is  to  the  en- 
ergy of  these  teachers  that  we  must  largely  ascribe  that 
completeness  with  which  special  training  has  been 
brought  to  bear  upon  every  department  of  practical 
life  hi  Germany,  upon  private  business  in  production 
and  distribution  no  less  than  upon  all  kinds  of  admin- 
istrative work.  A  control  is  exercised  over  the  univer- 
sities by  the  government  which  you  here  and  we  hi 
England  might  think  excessive,  but  in  practice  it  does 
not  seem  to  be  harmful,  for  public  opinion  practically 
secures  freedom  of  teaching  and  relieves  the  professors 


THE  MISSION  OF  STATE  UNIVERSITIES          157 

from  undue  interference.  The  tradition  of  respect  for 
the  great  seats  of  learning,  strong  in  the  minds  of  the 
German  bureaucracy,  who  have  all  been  educated  there, 
is  found  to  act  as  an  efficient  protection.  Indeed,  the 
whole  nation  cares  for  the  universities,  is  proud  of  the 
universities,  recognizes,  as  perhaps  no  other  nation  has 
ever  done,  the  value  for  practical  life  of  full  knowledge 
and  exact  training,  so  that  everything  is  done  which 
money  and  organizing  skill  can  do  to  maintain  the  in- 
stitutions of  learning  and  teaching  at  the  highest  level 
of  efficiency.  Nor  must  I  forget  to  add  that  the  uni- 
versities have  another  claim  on  the  affection  of  the 
German  people  in  the  fact  that  when,  after  the  battle 
of  Jena  in  1806,  North  Germany  lay  for  a  tune  pros- 
trate at  the  feet  of  a  foreign  conqueror,  it  was  in  the 
universities  that  the  patriotic  national  spirit  found  its 
surest  home,  and  it  was  among  their  professors  and 
students  that  the  movement  began  which  culminated 
in  the  liberation  of  the  German  fatherland. 

The  universities  of  England  —  and  here  I  speak 
chiefly  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  as  the  oldest  and  by 
far  the  most  characteristic  educational  product  of 
English  soil  —  belong  to  a  different  type.  Although 
the  great  scientific  discoveries  of  the  last  centuries  are 
due  to  British  more  than  to  any  other  discoverers, 
these  universities  have  not  in  recent  years  contributed 
so  largely  to  original  research  either  in  natural  science 
or  in  the  human  subjects  as  have  their  sisters  in  Ger- 
many. They  are  far  less  completely  organized  for  the 


158      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

purposes  of  instruction.  They  do  not  educate  so  large 
a  proportion  of  the  people.  They  have  been,  since  the 
Reformation,  for  the  most  part  places  of  resort  for  the 
upper  and  middle  classes,  and  it  is  only  within  the  last 
thirty  years  that  they  began  to  be  rendered  easily  ac- 
cessible to  the  promising  and  diligent  youth  of  the 
poorer  sections  of  society.  But  they  have  had  several 
conspicuous  merits  which  are  specially  their  own. 
Their  ideal  has  been  to  give  not  so  much  an  education 
qualifying  a  man  to  succeed  in  any  particular  walk  of 
life  as  that  general  education  which  will  fit  him  to  be  a 
worthy  member  of  church  and  commonwealth.  They 
have  sought  to  develop  men  as  men,  to  shape  and 
polish  a  completely  harmonious  and  well-rounded  in- 
tellect and  character,  a  personality  in  whom  all  facul- 
ties have  been  cultivated  and  brought  as  nearly  as  may 
be  to  a  symmetrical  completeness.  And  in  aiming  at 
this,  they  have  thought  not  only  of  learning  or  of  the 
powers  of  the  speculative  intellect,  but  also  of  the  apti- 
tudes which  find  their  scope  in  practical  life,  and  which 
enable  a  man  to  work  usefully  with  other  men  and  to 
exercise  a  wholesome  influence  in  his  community.  Ox- 
ford and  Cambridge  have  long  been  closely  associated 
with  the  public  life  of  the  nation.  In  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  centuries  nearly  all  of  those  who 
reached  high  eminence  as  statesmen  were  their 
alumni,  and  gratefully  acknowledged  how  much  they 
owed  to  the  Alma  Mater.  That  which  they  did  owe 
was  not  always  learning  nor  even  the  power  of  ready 


THE  MISSION  OF  STATE  UNIVERSITIES          159 

and  finished  speech,  a  power  which  must  always  count 
for  much  in  the  political  life  of  a  free  country.  It  was 
perhaps  rather  the  knowledge  of  human  nature,  the  tact 
and  judgment,  the  sense  of  honour  and  comradeship 
which  daily  social  intercourse  in  the  colleges  of  these 
universities  tended  to  form.  In  these  colleges  —  there 
are  twenty-two  in  Oxford  and  nineteen  in  Cambridge 
—  there  is  a  sort  of  domestic  life  which  brings  the 
students  into  close  touch  with  one  another.  The 
undergraduates  dine  together  in  the  same  college  hall 
along  with  the  graduate  members  of  the  college  who 
are  the  teachers.  They  worship  in  the  same  college 
chapel.  They  have  their  sports  together,  each  col- 
lege with  its  cricket  team  and  its  racing  boats  on  the 
river.  The  opportunities  for  forming  friendships  are 
unrivalled,  and  thus  it  comes  to  pass  that  those  who 
remember  Oxford  and  Cambridge  say  that  they  learnt 
as  much  from  one  another  as  they  did  from  their  pro- 
fessors and  tutors.  Moreover,  the  domestic  arrange- 
ments of  our  English  college  life  create  a  more  easy 
and  familiar  intercourse  between  the  teachers,  espe- 
cially the  younger  ones,  and  the  undergraduates  than 
exists  anywhere  else.  The  undergraduate  students 
are  the  friends  of  their  teachers,  living  with  them  on 
an  equality  which  is  of  course  tempered  by  the  respect 
due  to  age  and  experience.  It  is  a  pleasant  relation, 
good  for  the  older  and  the  younger  alike.  Thus  has 
there  been  created  in  Oxford  and  Cambridge  that 
impalpable  thing  which  we  call  an  Atmosphere,  an 


160      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

intellectual  and  social  tone  which  forms  manners  and 
refines  taste,  and  strengthens  characters  by  traditions 
inherited  from  a  long  and  splendid  past. 

The  four  universities  of  Scotland  are  very  different 
from  the  English,  and  rather  resemble  the  universities 
of  Germany.  Though  far  less  completely  equipped 
than  are  the  latter,  for  Scotland  has  been  a  com- 
paratively poor  country,  they  have  always  given  a 
high  quality  of  instruction,  and  produced  a  large 
number  of  remarkable  men.  There  are  no  residential 
colleges  like  those  of  England,  so  the  undergraduates 
live  in  lodgings,  where  they  please,  and  thus  there  is 
less  of  social  student  life.  But  the  instruction  is 
stimulating;  and  the  undergraduates,  being  mostly 
poor  men,  and  coming  of  a  diligent  and  aspiring  stock, 
are  more  generally  studious  and  hard-working  and 
self-reliant  than  are  those  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge. 
Within  the  last  twenty  years  women  have  been  ad- 
mitted to  the  classes,  and  that  which  was  deemed  an 
experiment  is  pronounced  to  be  a  success. 

Last,  I  come  to  your  own  universities.  Whereas  the 
universities  of  Germany  have  been  popular  but  not 
free,  and  those  of  England  free  but  not  popular,  yours, 
like  those  of  Scotland,  are  both  popular  and  free. 
Their  doors  are  open  to  every  one,  and  every  one 
enters.  They  are  untrammeled  by  any  religious  or 
political  prejudices,  even  when  they  are  associated  with 
a  particular  denomination,  and  they  have  been,  with 
comparatively  few  exceptions,  managed  without  any 


THE  MISSION  OF  STATE  UNIVERSITIES          161 

intrusion  of  political  influences.  Many  of  them 
allow  the  student  a  wider  choice  among  subjects  of 
study  and  leave  him  in  other  ways  more  free  to  do  as 
he  pleases  than  is  the  case  in  any  other  institutions  in 
the  English-speaking  world. 

Nor  is  it  only  that  your  universities  are  accessible 
to  all  classes.  They  have  achieved  what  has  never 
been  achieved  before,  —  they  have  led  all  classes  of  the 
people  to  believe  in  the  value  of  university  education 
and  wish  to  attain  it.  They  have  made  it  seem  a 
necessary  part  of  the  equipment  of  every  one  who 
can  afford  the  time  to  take  it.  In  England,  and  indeed 
in  Europe  generally,  such  an  education  has  been  a 
luxury  for  the  ordinary  man,  though  it  may  have  been 
reckoned  almost  a  necessity  for  those  who  are  entering 
on  one  of  the  distinctively  "learned  professions."  But 
here  it  is  deemed  a  natural  preparation  for  a  business 
life  also;  and  the  proportion  of  business  men  who  have 
studied  at  some  university  is  far  larger  in  the  United 
States  than  in  any  other  country. 

However,  it  was  of  your  State  universities  only  that 
I  meant  to  speak,  because  they  are  the  newest,  the  most 
peculiar,  and  the  most  interesting  product  of  American 
educational  zeal.  They  are  a  remarkable  expression 
of  the  spirit  which  has  latterly  come  to  pervade  this 
country,  that  the  functions  of  government  may  be 
usefully  extended  to  all  sorts  of  undertakings  for  the 
public  benefit  which  it  was  formerly  thought  better 
to  leave  to  private  enterprise.  The  provision  of  ele- 


162     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

mentary  education  was  indeed  long  ago  assumed  by 
the  State,  because  it  was  deemed  necessary  that  those 
who  vote  as  citizens  should  possess  the  rudiments  of 
knowledge.  But  in  going  on  to  found  and  support 
and  manage  institutions  supplying  the  higher  forms  of 
education  at  a  low  or  merely  nominal  charge,  you  of 
the  American  West  went  further  than  any  other  com- 
munities in  the  English-speaking  world.  The  same 
principle  has  guided  several  of  your  States,  and  this 
State  in  particular,  in  so  enlarging  the  range  of  uni- 
versity action  as  to  bring  it  into  direct  contact  with 
the  schools  and  the  people  through  systems  of  lectures 
and  correspondence  and  through  the  multiform  activ- 
ities of  the  agricultural  department.  The  greatest  asset 
of  a  community  is  the  energy  and  intelligence  of  its 
members.  Your  citizens  have  the  energy  and  you  feel 
it  to  be  "  good  business  "  to  develop  their  native  intel- 
ligence by  the  completest  education  they  can  desire. 

In  committing  yourselves  to  this  principle  you  here 
in  the  West  seem  to  have  returned  to  that  conception 
of  the  functions  of  the  State  which  prevailed  in  the 
Greek  republics  of  antiquity,  where  it  was  denned  as 
"a  partnership  of  men  in  the  highest  social  life,"  and 
you  have  abandoned  that  laissez-faire  doctrine  gen- 
erally held  seventy  years  ago  which  regarded  the  gov- 
erning power  in  a  community  as  established  mainly 
for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  civil  order  within  and 
providing  for  defence  against  external  foes,  and  held 
that  to  go  further  than  this  was  to  weaken  or  to  tram- 


THE  MISSION  OF  STATE   UNIVERSITIES          163 

mel  individual  initiative  and  to  interfere  with  the 
generally  beneficent  working  of  the  natural  forces 
that  guide  social  progress.  Whether  this  reversal  of 
policy  was  needed  in  order  to  give  energy  and  inde- 
pendence their  fair  chance,  for,  as  J.  S.  Mill  observed, 
it  is  even  more  fatal  to  exertion  to  have  no  hope  of 
succeeding  by  it  than  to  be  assured  of  succeeding 
without  it,  and  whether  the  doctrine  of  Greece  and 
Wisconsin  or  the  doctrine  of  the  physiocrats  and 
Benthamites  will  prove  in  the  long  run  to  be  the  best 
for  the  stimulation  of  inventive  thought  and  enterprise 
and  for  the  general  advance  of  the  community,  is  a 
question  I  will  not  stop  to  discuss.  This  at  least  may 
be  said,  that  this  particular  form  of  State  intervention 
which  the  new  principle  has  taken  in  the  West  has  the 
merit  of  associating  all  the  citizens  in  a  direct  and 
personal  way  with  the  university,  making  them  feel  it 
to  be  their  creation,  arousing  the  liberality  of  the  leg- 
islature to  it,  and  giving  the  whole  State  an  interest  in 
its  prosperity  and  efficiency. 

There  are,  however,  two  risks  incident  to  popularly 
managed  governmental  control  of  all  institutions  of 
teaching  and  learning,  against  which  it  is  well  to  be 
forewarned.  Although  neither  you  nor  your  sister 
State  universities  may  have  yet  encountered  them, 
they  may  some  day  threaten  you,  for  popular  manage- 
ment is  no  guarantee  against  their  appearance. 

One  of  these  is  the  possibility  that  a  legislature,  or  a 
governing  authority  appointed  by  a  legislature,  may 


1 64      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

carry  politics  into  academical  affairs,  as  politics  have 
been  sometimes  carried  into  those  affairs  in  parts  of  the 
European  Continent  where  the  university  is  an  organ 
of  the  State.  Freedom  is  the  life-blood  of  university 
teaching.  Neither  the  political  opinions  of  a  professor, 
nor  the  character  of  the  economic  doctrines  which  he 
holds  and  propagates,  ought  to  be  a  ground  for  appoint- 
ing or  dismissing  him,  nor  ought  he  to  be  any  less  free 
to  speak  and  vote  as  he  pleases  than  any  other  citizen. 
And  though  it  is  right  and  fitting  that  the  State 
should  be  represented  in  the  governing  authority 
of  a  university  which  it  supports,  experience  seems  to 
have  proved  that  both  the  educational  policy  and  the 
daily  administration  and  discipline  of  a  university 
ought  as  far  as  possible  to  be  either  left  in  academic 
hands  or  entrusted  to  an  authority  on  which  the 
academic  element  predominates. 

The  other  risk  is  one  to  which  in  our  time  most 
universities  are  exposed,  and  State  universities  per- 
haps even  more  than  others.  The  progress  of  natural 
science  has  been  so  rapid,  the  results  obtained  by  the 
application  of  science  to  all  forms  of  industry  and 
to  many  forms  of  commercial  exchange,  have  been 
so  wonderful,  the  eagerness  of  every  man  to  amass 
wealth  and  of  every  nation  to  outstrip  its  rivals  in 
commerce  and  material  progress  is  so  keen,  that  the 
temptation  to  favour  at  the  expense  of  other  branches 
of  instruction  those  branches  from  which  pecuniary 
gain  may  be  expected  has  become  unusually  strong. 


THE  MISSION  OF  STATE  UNIVERSITIES          165 

It  is  a  temptation  felt  everywhere,  in  Europe  hardly 
less  than  here.  We  constantly  hear  men  who  are  ready 
to  spend  money  freely  on  the  so-called  practical 
branches  of  study,  such  as  mining,  agriculture,  and 
electrical  engineering,  disparage  the  study  of  theo- 
retical science  as  unprofitable,  while  they  seek  to 
eliminate  altogether  the  so-called  "humanistic"  sub- 
jects, such  as  philology,  history,  and  philosophy. 

This  is  a  grave  error.  In  the  physical  sciences  the 
discoveries  of  most  practical  importance  have  sprung 
out  of  investigations  undertaken  purely  for  the  sake 
of  knowledge,  without  any  notion  of  those  applications 
to  the  industries  and  arts  which  were  to  be  their  ulti- 
mate results.  These  it  would  indeed  have  been  im- 
possible to  foresee.  All  we  know  of  electricity,  of  those 
chemical  effects  of  light  which  have  led  to  photography, 
of  those  properties  of  certain  rays  in  the  spectrum 
which  have  proved  capable  of  being  turned  to  such 
admirable  account  in  surgery,  was  discovered  in  the 
pursuit  of  abstract  science  by  men  who  were  not  think- 
ing of  practice  or  gain  and  most  of  whom  gained  little 
except  fame  from  their  discoveries.  None  of  them 
dreamed  that  the  telegraph  and  the  dynamo  would 
issue  from  their  experiments  any  more  than  Napier 
when  he  invented  logarithms,  or  Newton  and  Leibnitz 
when  they  gave  us  the  differential  calculus,  were 
thinking  of  how  much  these  improved  mathematical 
methods  would  help  the  engineer  in  his  calculations. 
All  sound  practice  must  be  rooted  in  sound  theory,  and 


1 66     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

the  scientific  thinking  that  leads  to  discovery  must 
begin  in  the  theoretic  field.  Whatever  a  nation 
achieves,  whatever  a  university  achieves,  is  the  result 
of  patient  observation,  close  reasoning,  and,  let  me 
add,  of  the  love  of  knowledge  for  its  own  sake  ;  for 
the  man  who  is  bent  only  on  finding  what  is  pecuni- 
arily profitable  will  miss  many  a  path  at  the  end  of 
which  there  stands  the  figure  of  Truth,  with  all  the 
rewards  she  has  to  bestow.  Just  as  any  nation  which 
should  force  its  children  to  narrow  their  energies  to 
purely  gainful  aims  would  soon  fall  behind  its  com- 
petitors, and  see  its  intellectual  life  fade  and  wither,  so 
any  university  which  sacrificed  its  teaching  of  the  the- 
ory of  science  to  the  teaching  of  the  practical  applica- 
tions of  science  would  be  unworthy  of  its  high  calling 
and  would  handle  even  the  practical  part  of  its  work 
less  effectively.  The  loss  of  a  high  ideal  means  the 
loss  of  aspiration,  of  faith,  of  vital  force. 

In  no  country  are  these  things  better  understood 
than  in  Germany,  to  which  I  refer  because  she  has 
achieved  so  much  in  the  extension  of  her  commerce 
and  her  industry.  No  country  has  been  more  suc- 
cessful in  the  application  of  science  to  the  arts,  and  in 
none  has  the  need  for  a  wide  foundation  of  abstract 
scientific  teaching  been  more  fully  recognized. 

The  planting  and  the  development  of  these  State 
Universities  and  the  hold  they  have  acquired  upon  the 
people  of  the  State,  are  among  the  most  cheering  evi- 
dences of  the  wisdom  and  capacity  for  good  work  of 


THE  MISSION  OF  STATE  UNIVERSITIES          167 

your  new  democracies.  They  have  their  defects,  but 
they  are  filled  by  the  desire  to  help  the  common  man 
onward  and  upward,  and  to  help  him  in  the  best  way 
by  providing  him  with  the  amplest  measure  of  knowl- 
edge and  mental  training  so  that  he  may  know  how 
to  help  himself.  The  peoples  of  the  Western  States, 
most  of  whom  have  had  no  college  teaching  themselves, 
show  their  sense  of  the  worth  of  learning  and  culture 
by  the  liberality  with  which  they  support  these  insti- 
tutions and  the  pride  they  feel  in  their  prosperity. 

These  States  have  made  you,  the  professors  and 
students  of  their  universities,  their  debtors.  How  can 
you  repay  that  debt,  and  what  service  can  you,  some  of 
you  as  professors  remaining  here,  others  as  youthful 
graduates  going  out  into  the  world,  render  to  your  States 
in  return  ?  In  order  to  answer  this  question,  let  me 
first  ask  another.  What  is  it  that  the  graduate  has 
received  ?  What  does  he  carry  away  with  him  as  the 
fruit  of  the  days  of  study  here  ?  What  will  he  remem- 
ber forty  years  hence  as  the  best  things  his  university 
has  done  for  him?  If  I  may  judge  of  what  you  will 
then  feel  from  what  I  and  my  own  contemporaries 
feel  as  we  look  back,  through  a  vista  of  more  than 
fifty  years,  to  our  happy  Oxford  days,  you  will  then 
say  that  your  university  bestowed  on  you  two  gifts  of 
supereminent  value. 

One  was  Friendships.  The  opportunities  for  mak- 
ing congenial  friendships  are  ampler  in  college  life  than 
ever  afterwards.  Besides  the  familiar  intercourse  of 


1 68     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

the  class  room,  and  on  the  campus,  and  wherever  stu- 
dents meet  together,  the  acquiring  of  knowledge  hi 
company  is  itself  a  foundation  for  sympathy.  Joint 
study  becomes  a  bond.  To  have  the  same  tastes, 
to  enjoy  the  same  books,  to  work  side  by  side  in  the 
laboratory,  to  help  one  another  hi  difficulties,  to  argue 
out  one's  differences  of  opinions,  to  be  inspired  by  the 
same  ideals  and  confide  them  to  one  another,  these  are 
the  means  by  which  young  men  best  enter  into  one 
another's  hearts  and  hopes,  and  form  ties,  which,  last- 
ing as  long  as  life  itself,  may  be  a  source  of  joy  until 
the  end. 

The  other  gift  was  the  delight  in  Knowledge,  a 
sense  of  how  much  there  is  to  be  known,  of  the  vast 
horizon  that  is  ever  widening  as  one  goes  on  learning, 
of  how  with  each  one  of  us  the  enlargement  of  per- 
sonal knowledge  seems  only  to  enlarge  the  sense  of  the 
regions  of  mystery  beyond  that  horizon.  With  this 
delight  there  goes  also  a  perception  of  the  invaluable 
help  which  real  knowledge,  accurate,  thorough,  duly 
arranged  and  systematized,  can  render  to  each  man 
and  each  community  in  dealing  with  the  facts  of  every 
situation.  And  with  the  joy  hi  knowledge  there  ought 
to  go,  and  in  the  minds  of  all  who  really  enjoy  knowl- 
edge there  will  go,  the  love  of  Truth.  Devotion  to 
truth,  loyalty  to  truth  under  all  temptations,  is  the  in- 
tellectual conscience  of  the  man  of  learning  and  the 
man  of  science;  and  to  create  it  is  the  chief  aim  for 
the  sake  of  which  universities  exist.  If  your  univer- 


THE  MISSION  OF   STATE  UNIVERSITIES          169 

sity  teaching  and  life  have  not  taught  you  that,  they 
have  left  the  main  thing  undone. 

Is  there  then  not  a  way  in  which  you  as  university 
men  going  out  into  the  world  can  repay  to  your  Alma 
Mater  and  to  your  State  the  debt  you  owe  them? 
We  live  in  an  age  when  difficulties  thicken  upon  us, 
when,  in  spite  of  the  dissatisfaction  so  frequently  ex- 
pressed with  the  existing  methods  of  government,  new 
work  is  being  constantly  thrust  upon  governments, 
when  the  strife  of  labor  and  capital  and  the  social  un- 
rest that  growls  and  mutters  all  around  us  make  it  at 
once  more  necessary  to  determine  what  justice  requires 
and  harder  to  persuade  any  section  of  the  community 
to  recede  from  its  claims.  Never  was  there  a  more 
urgent  need  either  for  applying  every  kind  of  knowl- 
edge to  the  solution  of  these  problems,  or  for  trying 
to  seek  the  solution  in  a  spirit  free  from  all  prejudice 
or  bias.  Your  university  studies  have  taught  you 
both  to  realize  the  worth  of  thorough  and  systema- 
tized knowledge  and  to  moderate  the  vehemence  of 
partisanship  by  a  disinterested  devotion  to  truth. 
Thus  you  can  contribute  to  the  community  of  which 
you  are  citizens  three  things.  One  is  the  spirit  of 
progress,  which  is  hopeful  because  it  is  always  seeking 
to  better  things  by  knowledge  and  skill.  Another  is 
the  spirit  of  moderation,  cautious  because  it  resists 
the  temptations  of  party  passion,  or  the  impulse,  often 
honest  enough,  to  grasp  at  the  first  hasty  expedient  for 
removing  admitted  evils  without  considering  whether 


170     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

that  may  not  involve  other  evils  just  as  great.  And 
the  third  is  the  love  of  truth,  which,  when  it  is  strong 
enough,  will  help  a  man  to  overcome  the  promptings 
of  personal  ambition  or  the  baser  lures  which  the 
power  of  selfish  wealth  can  offer. 

It  has  sometimes  been  claimed  for  the  University 
that  it  is  the  mind  of  the  State,  or  at  least  the  organ 
which  the  State  may  employ  to  examine  and  think 
out  the  problems  the  State  has  to  deal  with.  That 
may  be  too  large  a  claim.  But  I  am  speaking  now 
not  so  much  of  the  university  as  a  body  of  men 
organized  in  an  institution  dedicated  to  teaching 
and  research  but  rather  of  those  children  of  the  uni- 
versity who  go  forth  from  it  into  the  world,  preserving 
the  real  academic  spirit  through  the  whole  of  their  busi- 
ness or  professional  careers,  furnishing  skilled  leaders 
in  political  and  social  movements,  and  forming  the  pub- 
lic opinion  of  the  whole  community  by  which  nation  and 
State,  more  truly  here  in  America  than  anywhere  else 
in  the  world,  are  led  and  ruled.  Upon  these  citizens 
comes  with  special  force  the  call  to  translate  into  real- 
ity that  noble  ideal  of  an  educated  democracy,  reason- 
able and  just  because  it  is  educated,  which  the  people 
of  America  have  long  ago  set  up  for  themselves,  and 
towards  which,  through  many  obstacles,  they  are  stead- 
ily and  surely  moving. 


THE  ART  OF  AUGUSTUS   SAINT-GAUDENS 

ADDRESS  TO  THE  AMERICAN  INSTITUTE  OF  ARCHITECTS  AT 
WASHINGTON,  DECEMBER  ISTH,  1908. 


THE   ART   OF   AUGUSTUS   SAINT-GAUDENS 

ADDRESS  TO  THE  AMERICAN  INSTITUTE  OF  ARCHITECTS  AT 
WASHINGTON,  DECEMBER  ISTH,  1908. 

MY  only  justification  for  appearing  here  to  say  a 
few  words  in  honor  of  the  illustrious  artist  you  are 
met  to  commemorate  is  the  fact  that  Augustus  Saint- 
Gaudens  was  born  hi  Ireland  and  of  an  Irish  mother. 
I  will  not  dispute  with  my  friend  and  colleague  the 
Ambassador  of  France  how  much  of  his  artistic  genius 
is  due  to  Ireland,  and  whether  it  bears  the  stamp  of  the 
Gallo-Roman  branch  or  of  the  Gaelic  branch  of  the 
Celtic  race.  But  all  of  it  that  can  be  deemed  possibly 
attributable  to  Ireland  I  am  going  to  claim  for  Ireland, 
and  that  for  a  special  reason.  Ireland  has,  as  all  the 
world  knows,  given  to  the  British  Isles,  and  also  to 
this  country,  a  great  number  of  men  famous  in  litera- 
ture, famous  in  science,  famous  in  war,  famous  in  gov- 
ernment. What  would  you  have  done  in  the  United 
States  without  Irishmen  to  manage  your  affairs  of 
State  ?  But  in  proportion  to  the  genius  her  children 
have  shown  in  other  directions,  Ireland  has  given  to 
the  Fine  Arts,  as  even  her  admirers  must  admit,  com- 
paratively few  men  of  first-rate  eminence,  and  this  is 
the  more  remarkable  because  the  ancient  Celtic  work 

173 


174      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

of  the  churches  and  monumental  crosses  of  Ireland  is 
full  of  richness  and  beauty.  So  desiring  to  secure  for 
my  island  all  the  artistic  honours  possible,  I  must  claim 
Saint-Gaudens  for  it.  I  had  intended  to  have  dwelt 
upon  the  inspiration  which  he  derived  in  his  early 
years  in  Dublin  from  the  picturesque  and  romantic 
scenery  which  surrounds  that  ancient  city,  but,  unfor- 
tunately, I  committed  the  fault  —  unpardonable  in  a 
man  with  some  experience  in  these  matters,  and  a  fault 
which  I  hereby  warn  you  against  —  of  trying  to  verify 
my  facts  by  reference  to  the  original  authorities,  and  I 
found  that  Saint-Gaudens  quitted  Dublin  at  the  age 
of  six  months.  So  I  must  fall  back  upon  that  native 
quality  which  he  drew  from  his  Irish  mother. 

I  will  not  attempt,  after  what  has  been  said  by 
previous  speakers,  and  especially  after  that  analysis  of 
his  genius,  at  once  vigorous  and  delicate,  which  was 
given  by  the  President  of  the  United  States,  to  fix  the 
place  which  Saint-Gaudens  holds  among  those  who 
have  adorned  the  splendid  art  of  sculpture,  an  art 
which  has,  ever  since  the  great  Italian  masters  died 
out  nearly  four  centuries  ago,  held  in  the  field  of  mod- 
ern achievement  a  place  that  seems  small  when  we  com- 
pare it  with  that  supremacy  yielded  to  it  hi  the  artistic 
production  of  the  ancient  world,  and  which  it  almost 
regained  in  Italy  during  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries.  Among  those  men  who  stand  preeminent 
in  sculpture  since  the  death  of  Michael  Angelo,  the 
highest  renown  seems  to  have  fallen  to  the  Italian 


THE  ART  OF  AUGUSTUS   SAINT-GAUDENS       175 

Canova  and  the  Icelander  Thorwaldson,  and  it  came 
to  these  two  not  so  much  through  any  new  creative 
quality  they  revealed  in  plastic  work  or  any  personal 
originality  that  shone  out  in  their  own  conceptions,  as 
by  the  fact  that  they  reproduced  the  kind  of  beauty 
and  the  type  of  artistic  thought  which  inspired  the 
art  of  the  Greeks.  Thus  admirable  as  is  the  genius  of 
both,  they  seem  to  us  to  be  revivifying,  so  far  as 
moderns  can,  the  manner  of  Greece  rather  than  to 
have  renewed  those  traditions  of  the  grand  style  of  the 
Renaissance  whose  latest  expressions  are  to  be  found 
in  the  marvellous  figures  of  the  Laurentian  chapel  at 
Florence  and  in  those  which  stand  around  the  tomb 
of  the  Emperor  Maximilian  at  Innsbruck. 

Without  venturing  into  the  dangerous  field  of  theoriz- 
ing about  art  or  attempting  to  indicate  the  elements 
that  go  to  the  making  of  its  highest  forms,  I  suppose 
we  may  all  agree  in  thinking  that  there  are  in 
sculpture  three  more  or  less  distinctive  kinds  of  excel- 
lence. There  is  the  excellence  which  consists  in  the 
faithful  reproduction  of  nature;  there  is  the  excel- 
lence hi  which  we  admire  pure  beauty  of  form  and 
line ;  and  there  is  the  excellence  which  makes  its 
special  appeal  to  the  imagination  of  the  beholder  be- 
cause it  proceeds  from  the  imagination  of  the  artist 
himself.  When  he  has  the  power  of  speaking  to  our 
intellect  and  emotions  straight  out  of  his  own  mind, 
he  enables  us  to  realize  not  only  how  the  subject 
presented  itself  to  his  thought,  but  what  was  really 


176     UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

the  deepest  and  most  essential  thing  in  his  subject 
itself.  If  the  subject  be  a  person,  he  reveals  the  in- 
nermost nature  of  the  man  portrayed.  If  it  is  a  scene ,  he 
brings  out  the  true  and  permanent  meaning  it  will  have 
for  the  long  Hereafter.  To  possess  any  one  of  these  ex- 
cellences in  high  measure  is  to  be  great.  To  possess 
all  three  in  such  measure  is  to  attain  perfection.  Au- 
gustus Saint-Gaudens,  we  may  probably  agree,  stood 
preeminent  in  the  third.  His  highest  gift  was  his  power 
of  imaginative  conception.  As  all  the  great  men 
that  have  left  their  mark  in  the  world  of  affairs  have  been 
great  by  combining  the  power  of  thinking  with  energy, 
promptitude,  and  courage  in  action,  so  all  the  men  that 
have  been  great  in  the  fields  of  literature  and  art  have 
been  great  by  combining  the  power  of  thinking  with  the 
power  of  feeling,  that  is,  the  capacity  of  receiving  and 
giving  out  an  emotional  impression.  Now  what  most 
strikes  us  in  Saint-Gaudens'  works  is  that,  whatever 
else  we  find,  we  find  an  intense  and  profound  power  of 
thinking  combined  with  an  equal  power  of  feeling. 
Look  around  upon  these  works  in  this  room.  Does  he 
not  seem  to  you,  whenever  he  approached  a  subject, 
be  it  a  man  or  an  incident,  to  have  sat  down  and  medi- 
tated, slowly  and  patiently,  until  he  had  discovered  for 
himself  exactly  what  lay  at  the  foundation  of  the  man's 
character  or  what  it  was  that  struck  the  deepest  chord 
of  human  nature  in  the  incident  ?  Then,  pervaded 
by  this  thought,  he  set  himself  to  represent  and  ex- 
press that  which  belonged  to  the  man  or  to  the  inci- 


THE  ART  OF  AUGUSTUS   SAINT-GAUDENS        177 

dent,  and  he  did  express  it  with  an  unerring  accuracy 
and  a  rarely  equalled  power.  This  accuracy  was  due 
to  his  possessing,  along  with  high  ideals,  a  patience 
that  grudged  no  pains.  He  kept  some  of  his  works 
for  years  in  his  studio  after  others  had  thought  them 
complete,  touching  and  retouching  them  till  they  were 
brought  nearer  to  the  standard  of  perfection  he  had 
set  up.  One  of  his  disciples  remembers  a  day  when 
in  modelling  an  arm  for  a  figure  he  moulded  and  threw 
away  more  than  twenty  attempts  to  get  in  the  clay 
exactly  the  shape  and  contour  he  desired. 

Think  of  any  one  of  his  greatest  works.  Look  at 
that  noble  statue  of  President  Lincoln  in  the  park  at 
Chicago,  in  which  the  grandeur  of  the  man  transforms 
and  triumphs  over  all  those  difficulties  and  defects 
which  the  figure  and  the  clothing  presented  and  which 
might  have  appeared  inconsistent  with  Hellenic  ideas 
of  beauty  and  grace. 

Think  of  that  solemn  and  majestic  figure  of  Sorrow 
in  the  Rock  Creek  Cemetery  here  at  Washington 
which  seems  by  mere  form  and  posture  to  have  suc- 
ceeded in  expressing  what  has  seldom  been  expressed 
by  sculptor  or  painter,  though  the  greatest  masters  of 
music  have  been  able  to  express  it  through  sound.  It 
touches  us  like  a  requiem  by  Mozart  or  one  of  those 
pieces  of  Chopin  in  which  the  very  soul  of  sadness 
seems  to  speak  through  the  chords. 

Think  of  that  infinitely  pathetic  figure  of  the  young 
hero  of  New  England,  Robert  Shaw,  as  you  see  him 


178     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

in  the  bas-relief  on  the  border  of  Boston  Common  — 
the  young  hero  of  New  England  riding  calmly  to  his 
fate  at  the  head  of  his  soldiers,  soldiers  of  another  race 
just  delivered  from  slavery.  The  shadow  of  death 
rests  already  upon  him. 

Sed  nox  atra  caput  tristi  circumvolat  umbra.1 

When  you  think  of  works  like  those,  in  which  the 
loftiest  imagination  has  been  accompanied  with  the 
most  finished  grace  of  execution,  you  feel  how  great 
a  genius  it  has  been  the  privilege  of  your  age  to  pos- 
sess in  the  artist  whose  memory  we  have  met  to 
honour. 

The  danger  or  the  weakness  which  is  sometimes 
found  to  accompany  this  power  of  imaginative  expres- 
sion is  that  it  is  apt  to  lapse  into  something  extrava- 
gant or  sensational.  Nothing  was  farther  from  Saint- 
Gaudens.  In  that  respect  he  had  the  balance  and 
self-restraint,  as  well  as  the  fine  sense  of  beauty  and 
measure,  which  belonged  to  his  Greek  masters.  It  is  by 
that,  we  may  believe,  —  by  the  power  of  imaginative 
conception  and  expression,  combined  with  calmness  and 
self-restraint,  —  that  he  will  live  in  the  admiring  mem- 
ory of  all  who  love  and  prize  art  in  every  country. 
Most  of  all  will  he  live  hi  America,  which  did  not,  in- 
deed, give  him  birth,  but  which  received  him  as  a 
child,  which  helped  him,  which  cherished  him,  which 
recognized  his  gifts  as  though  he  had  been  one  of  her 

1  Aeneid  VI,  of  the  young  Marcdlus. 


THE  ART  OF  AUGUSTUS   SAINT-GAUDENS        179 

own  children,  which  gave  him  those  noble  subjects  from 
her  own  history  with  which  his  name  will  always  be 
associated.  He  deserves  to  be  remembered  forever 
among  you  as  one  of  the  artistic  glories  of  your 
country. 


ARCHITECTURE  AND   HISTORY 

ADDRESS  AT  A  BANQUET  OF  THE  AMERICAN  INSTITUTE  OF  ARCHI- 
TECTS IN  WASHINGTON,  DECEMBER,  1908. 


ARCHITECTURE  AND  HISTORY 

ADDRESS  AT  A  BANQUET  OF  THE  AMERICAN  INSTITUTE  OF  ARCHI- 
TECTS IN  WASHINGTON,  DECEMBER,  1908. 

MY  first  duty  is  to  thank  you  for  the  way  in  which 
you  have  received  the  toast  to  which  I  am  desired 
to  respond.  I  was  touched  by  the  simple  manner 
in  which  your  President  gave  the  toast,  "The  King." 
He  gave  it  in  the  same  way  in  which  it  might  have 
been  given  in  A.D.  1759  in  the  North  American  colonies, 
when  all  patriotic  hearts  were  swelling  with  pride  at 
the  news  of  the  victory  won  by  Wolfe  on  the  Plains  of 
Abraham  and  the  winning  of  all  North  America  for  the 
benefit  of  those  colonies.  A  good  deal  of  water  has 
flowed  under  the  bridges  of  the  Potomac  since  1759;  but 
things  have  got  back,  so  far  as  relates  to  spirit  and  sen- 
timent, to  what  they  were  just  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago,  and  I  hope  and  believe  that  under  this  new 
order  of  things,  when  this  gigantic  Republic  has  for 
more  than  a  century  and  a  quarter  managed  its  affairs 
in  this  continent  in  its  own  way,  and  when  for  nearly 
a  century  undisturbed  peace  has  existed  between  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States,  the  ties  of  sentiment, 
feeling,  and  affection  which  unite  the  two  branches 
of  the  ancient  stock  are,  and  will  remain,  as  deep  and 

183 


1 84      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

as  strong  as  ever  they  were  in  the  days  of  political 
union. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  be  the  guest  of  the  American 
Institute  of  Architects.  I  have  always,  as  a  humble 
layman,  not  understanding  the  principles  and  methods 
of  the  splendid  art  which  you  practise,  but  admiring  its 
results,  felt  a  very  keen  interest  in  your  profession, 
and  have  thought  it  must  be  one  of  the  most  agreeable 
professions  that  a  man  could  enter.  There  is,  of  course, 
one  drawback  connected  with  it  —  that  vexation  which 
an  architect  must  experience  when  his  beautiful  designs 
for  a  building,  grand  in  its  lines  and  refined  in  its 
ornament,  are  frustrated  by  the  unresponsive  taste- 
lessness  and  tame  ideas  of  the  person  for  whom  the 
building  is  to  be  erected  and  who  probably  prefers 
internal  comfort  to  external  beauty.  That  must  be 
often  a  source  of  sore  disappointment  to  you.  But 
after  all,  every  profession  has  its  drawbacks.  Quisque 
suos  patimur  Manes.  In  my  own  profession,  that  of 
the  law,  it  does  sometimes  happen  that  the  most  elo- 
quent speeches  which  are  directed  to  secure  the  acquittal 
of  a  guilty  man  are  neglected  by  a  stupid  jury.  It  does 
sometimes  happen  in  the  profession  of  medicine  that  a 
person  whose  malady  has  been  pronounced  incurable  by 
a  skilful  practitioner  subsequently  recovers,  and  that 
his  recovery  is  attributed  not  to  the  skill  of  the  physician 
labouring  against  hope,  but  to  the  strength  of  the 
patient's  constitution.  It  sometimes  happens  in  the 
profession  of  the  journalist  that  the  efforts  which  the 


ARCHITECTURE  AND  HISTORY  185 

reporter  who  interviews  a  criminal  makes  to  obtain 
absolute  accuracy  about  the  details  of  the  crime  are 
not  successful,  and  that  he  does  not  even  get  credit 
for  the  strenuousness  of  those  efforts.  And  I  confess 
it  is  a  serious  drawback  to  the  profession  of  the  poli- 
tician and  legislator  that  one-half  of  his  tune  and  effort 
is  apt  to  be  spent,  not  in  securing  the  passing  of  good 
laws,  but  in  preventing  the  passing  of  those  laws,  be 
they  good  or  bad,  which  the  opposite  party  seeks  to 
pass. 

You,  gentlemen  (I  am  reminded  of  this  by  my 
reference  to  the  transitory  character  of  a  great  deal  of 
the  work  politicians  do),  have  one  satisfaction  which 
belongs  to  you,  as  compared  with  some  of  those  other 
professions  I  have  referred  to.  It  is  this:  You  do  attain 
a  solid,  visible,  tangible  result.  You  produce  something. 
There  is  the  building.  It  stands  there  for  the  world 
to  look  at,  and  for  yourself  to  admire.  It  stands ;  it 
continues  to  serve  some  useful  purposes ;  it  is  there  as 
something  definitely  attained  and  effected;  and  if  after 
some  fifty  or  sixty  years  faults  in  the  construction 
cause  it  perchance  to  totter  and  fall,  by  that  tune  it 
will  have  been  forgotten  who  was  the  architect;  and 
as  for  yourself,  you  will  not  suffer  from  any  criticism, 
because  you  will  be  elsewhere,  and  will  no  doubt  be 
enjoying  a  happiness  sufficient  to  make  you  entirely 
indifferent  to  criticism. 

So  I  come  back  to  the  conclusion  that  you  are,  on 
the  whole,  fortunate  in  your  profession.  And  you  have 


1 86     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

one  other  great  advantage.  You  are  following  a  pro- 
fession, the  study  of  which,  pursued  in  an  aesthetic  as 
well  as  scientific  spirit  all  your  life  through,  and  con- 
sisting largely  in  examining  the  masterpieces  of  archi- 
tecture that  have  been  erected  before  our  own  time, 
and  in  our  own  time,  is  in  itself  altogether  profitable 
and  delightful. 

Now,  I  cannot  honestly  say  that  the  whole  of  the 
study  of  the  law  is  enjoyable.  In  every  system  of 
law  there  is  much  that  is  artificial.  The  system  of  pro- 
cedure is  full  of  dreary  technicalities  which  sometimes 
obstruct  the  march  of  justice.  Statutes  contain  many 
arbitrary  rules.  There  are  cases  which  establish  prece- 
dents that  have  to  be  followed  because  the  decision  was 
so  given,  although  we  think  them  opposed  to  sound  prin- 
ciple. But  you  are  not  hampered  in  any  such  way. 
You  have  to  follow  principles  based  on  science,  and 
canons  of  taste  which  have  been,  for  the  most  part, 
settled  by  the  practice  of  the  greatest  among  your 
predecessors,  while  nevertheless  leaving  ample  scope  for 
your  own  sense  of  beauty  in  their  application  to  the  ob- 
jects of  the  building  and  the  conditions  of  the  spot  in 
which  it  is  to  be  placed.  A  large  part  of  your  training 
consists  in  the  study  of  the  noblest  works  erected  by 
men  of  genius  in  earlier  times.  In  the  study  of  those 
which  remain  from  antiquity  in  Egypt,  Greece,  and 
Italy,  and  in  the  study  of  the  far  greater  number  pro- 
duced in  the  Middle  Ages  and  during  the  Renaissance 
in  many  parts  of  Europe,  you  have  an  ever  fresh 


ARCHITECTURE  AND  HISTORY  187 

and  undiluted  source  of  pleasure.  I  can  remember  no 
happier  days  than  I  have  spent, — and  I  am  sure  they 
would  have  been  still  more  happy  had  it  been  my  good 
fortune  to  possess  a  special  and  technical  knowledge  of 
your  art,  —  in  examining  and  sometimes  trying  to 
sketch  old  churches  and  old  castles  and  old  city  walls 
and  municipal  buildings  and  palaces,  especially  in  the 
cities  of  Italy  and  Spain.  One  can  hardly  think  of 
any  higher  or  keener  enjoyment  than  lies  in  seeing 
what  man  has  done  hi  the  effort  to  combine  beauty 
and  convenience  in  buildings  meant  to  endure,  and  in 
following  by  the  light  of  history  the  progress  of  archi- 
tecture from  Greek  and  Roman  days  down  to  the 
eighteenth  century,  as  one  sees  that  progress  in  Italy, 
France,  Spain,  Portugal,  Germany,  and  Britain.  To 
this  I  may  add  that  your  art  has  a  special  claim  upon 
all  who  love  the  past,  because  it  is,  more  than  any 
other  art,  the  sister  and  interpreter  of  history.  There 
is  nothing  that  helps  so  much  to  a  comprehension  of 
history  as  the  study  of  the  buildings  of  a  country.  In 
them  you  see  how  men  faced  the  conditions  of  their 
life ;  you  see  exactly  what  they  needed  in  the  way  of 
defence  and  in  the  way  of  comfort ;  you  see  what  form 
of  structure  and  what  internal  arrangements  the  usages 
of  religion  prescribed  for  houses  of  worship ;  you  see 
by  tracing  the  type  of  buildings  in  each  particular  prov- 
ince or  district  of  a  country  what  were  the  racial,  politi- 
cal, and  cultural  influences  that  operated  upon  that 
district  at  the  time  when  the  building  you  are  studying 


1 88     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

was  erected ;  and  you  are  able,  in  a  word,  to  make  the 
buildings  of  a  country  illustrate  its  history  and  make 
its  history  explain  the  buildings.  Someone  ought  to 
write  a  manual  of  travel  for  those  who  visit  civilized 
countries,  such  as  the  Manual  Francis  Galton,  compiled 
for  explorers  in  wild  countries  thirty  years  ago;  and 
in  such  a  manual  there  might  well  be  allotted  to  the 
elements  of  architectural  history  a  chapter  sufficiently 
full  to  enable  an  intelligent  observer  to  find  pleasure 
in  the  study  of  buildings  as  well  as  of  Nature.  It  is  a 
pleasure  which  has  this  advantage,  that  one  can  hunt 
up  buildings  both  in  city  and  in  country,  whereas  in 
the  city  one  can  pursue  no  branch  of  natural  his- 
tory other  than  the  discovery  of  microbes.  I  doubt  if 
there  is  anything  which  could  be  better  done  for  a  stu- 
dent of  history  than  to  send  him  on  an  architectural 
tour  through  France,  for  instance ;  make  him  learn  to 
comprehend  the  Northern,  Eastern,  and  Southern  types 
of  building,  and  to  distinguish  between  the  subdivisions 
of  these  types,  and  to  comprehend  what  were  the  influ- 
ences that  gave  one  character  to  the  churches  of  Lorraine 
or  of  Burgundy,  let  us  say,  and  other  characters  to  those 
of  Provence  or  Aquitaine.  How  interesting  it  is  to  com- 
pare the  Romanesque  of  Germany  with  the  more  gener- 
ally graceful  Romanesque  of  France  and  the  perhaps 
almost  more  perfect  work  of  the  same  age  in  the 
churches  of  such  a  Spanish  city  as  Avila.  Everywhere 
the  buildings  interpret  the  age  and  the  age  interprets 
the  buildings. 


ARCHITECTURE  AND   HISTORY  189 

When  one  thinks  of  all  the  exquisite  monuments  of 
architectural  genius  which  adorn  such  a  country  as 
Italy  or  France,  one  has  to  remember  that  they  repre- 
sent the  accumulated  ingenuity  and  skill  and  labour 
and  taste  of  many  generations  of  men.  No  one  of 
those  generations  of  men  ever  had  such  opportunities 
as  architects  both  here  and  in  England  have  during 
the  last  sixty  years  enjoyed.  It  is  true  that  artistic 
designers  of  the  last  sixty  years  have  not  had  quite  so 
free  a  field  as  we  assume  that  your  predecessors  had  in 
the  Renaissance,  because  they  have  been  more  ham- 
pered by  committees,  boards  of  trustees,  municipal 
councils  and  other  authorities  who  cannot  realize,  as 
did  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent  at  Florence  or  King  John 
III  of  Portugal,  or  other  equally  large-minded  princes, 
that  the  great  architect  ought  to  have  carte  blanche 
for  the  building  he  has  planned.  But,  except  as  re- 
spects that  difficulty,  you  have  enjoyed  in  this  country, 
and  in  western  Europe  also,  extraordinary  opportunities 
during  more  than  half  a  century  of  economic  prosperity. 
Never,  I  suppose,  was  there  a  time  when  so  many 
edifices,  and  so  many  large  and  important  edifices, 
were  erected,  when  there  was  so  general  an  interest  in 
building,  and  when  so  much  money  was  lavishly 
spent  in  bricks  and  mortar.  In  England  we  de- 
veloped some  seventy  years  ago  a  sudden  access  of 
zeal  in  ecclesiastical  matters  which  not  only  covered 
the  outskirts  of  our  growing  cities  with  new  churches, 
but  set  people  to  the  repairing  of  old  churches.  And  I 


UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

grieve  to  have  to  confess  that  this  zeal  has  in  one  way 
worked  for  evil  rather  than  good.  We  have  committed 
a  crime  which  you  here  could  not  commit  —  I  hope 
that  even  if  the  opportunity  had  presented  itself,  you 
would  not  have  committed  it,  but  have  resisted  the 
temptation.  Anyhow,  the  opportunity  did  not  come  to 
you ;  and  to  us  it  did  come,  and  we,  purely  from  want 
of  thought,  yielded  to  the  temptation.  We  have  been 
restoring  not  only  some  of  our  cathedrals,  but  many  of 
our  ancient  parish  churches,  —  of  which  there  were 
more  that  had  come  down  untouched  from  before 
the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  than  any 
other  country  could  boast,  —  and  having  sometimes 
restored  them  almost  out  of  recognition,  we  have  un- 
fortunately obliterated  a  great  deal  of  the  history  that 
was  written  in  those  churches.  The  same  thing  has 
happened  in  France,  but  not  so  widely,  because  not  so 
much  interest  has  been  taken  there  in  the  parish 
churches.  Some  of  the  French  cathedrals,  however, 
have  suffered  more  seriously  than  any  English  cathe- 
dral. The  vast  and  splendid  cathedral  church  of 
Perigueux,  probably  the  grandest  building  of  Byzantine 
character  north  of  the  Alps,  has  been  so  transformed 
by  restoration  that  it  is  practically  impossible  to 
discover  the  features  it  had  half  a  century  ago.  As 
regards  England,  it  was  not  till  after  much  irreparable 
harm  had  been  done  that  between  twenty  and  thirty 
years  ago  an  enlightened  band  of  scholars  and  artists, 
the  most  energetic  and  conspicuous  of  whom  was 


ARCHITECTURE  AND   HISTORY  191 

the  poet  William  Morris,  took  the  field  and  exerted 
themselves  to  rouse  the  public  and  to  stop,  as  far  as 
possible,  the  process  of  transmogrifying  an  old  church 
into  something  that  was  neither  new  nor  old,  but  a  hope- 
less jumble.  The  work  of  ruin  has  now  been  checked, 
but  the  harm  already  done  is  a  calamity  to  weep  over. 
Here  you  have  not  had  ancient  buildings  to  injure,  and 
historical  feeling  has  made  you  spare  most  of  the  build- 
ings that  possessed  any  sort  of  interest  and  dated 
more  than  a  century  back. 

This,  however,  is  a  digression.  I  return  to  the  main 
subject  by  observing  that  neither  in  England  nor  any- 
where in  western  Europe  has  full  use  been  made  of 
the  opportunities  for  the  display  of  original  genius  in 
architecture  which  the  expenditure  of  vast  sums  of 
money  on  the  erection  of  an  immense  number  of  build- 
ings provided.  We  have  not  succeeded  there,  nor  any 
more  do  architects  in  Germany  or  France  seem  to  have 
succeeded,  in  evolving  anything  that  can  be  called  a 
new  style  distinctive  of  our  age.  When  we  look  back 
upon  every  century  from  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  to 
the  beginnings  of  the  West  European  Romanesque  type 
of  building  in  the  tenth  or  eleventh  century,  we  see  that 
the  buildings  of  almost  every  age  show  something  that 
is  characteristic  of  the  time,  some  forms  which  at  once 
denote  to  us  the  date  of  the  work.  But  if  we  look  at 
the  work  of  our  own  and  of  the  last  century  —  and  the 
same  thing  is  as  generally  true  in  France  and  Germany 
as  in  Britain  —  we  see  a  motley  array  of  all  sorts  of 


I92      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

different  styles,  from  the  eleventh  century  to  the  eigh- 
teenth. I  speak  chiefly  of  ecclesiastical  architecture, 
for  of  course  in  private  residences  and  municipal 
buildings  some  styles  are  less  convenient  for  practical 
purposes  than  others.  Efforts  are  sometimes  made 
to  combine  the  features  of  different  styles,  but  this 
eclecticism  is  seldom  successful,  and  the  total  result 
in  beautiful  and  impressive  buildings  is  not  worthy  of 
the  amount  of  knowledge  and  pains  that  has  been 
devoted  to  the  work  as  a  whole  and  of  the  amount  of 
money  that  has  been  spent  upon  it.  Some  fine  things 
have  been  produced,  but  few  in  proportion  to  the 
whole. 

Neither  have  you  here  in  the  United  States  developed 
any  characteristically  American  style  of  building  since 
the  so-called  "  colonial "  type  of  pre-Revolutionary 
days.  There  is  no  style  distinctive  of  the  different 
sections  of  the  country,  except  a  few  traces  of  Spanish 
work  in  Santa  Fe  (in  New  Mexico),  and  here  and 
there  in  California,  and  a  touch  of  French  influence 
in  the  older  parts  of  New  Orleans.  Nowhere  in  the 
western  world  does  one  find  any  parallel  to  the  long 
architectural  history  of  Europe  or  of  India.  Even 
in  Spanish  America,  where  people  built  from  the  first 
in  stone,  whereas  your  ancestors  built  in  wood,  there 
is  little  variety.  Nearly  all  the  churches  and  public 
buildings  vary  but  little  from  the  prevalent  sixteenth 
century  type  which  the  Spaniards  brought  with  them 
from  Europe.  Will  this  be  always  so,  or  will  you  of 


ARCHITECTURE  AND  HISTORY  193 

the  New  World,  after  two,  three  or  four  centuries,  de- 
velop one  or  more  styles  characteristic  of  America, 
and  offer  to  the  historians  of  a  still  distant  future  a 
field  of  study  like  that  which  the  Old  World  presents 
to  us  now  ? 

Here  in  the  United  States  you  seem  to  have  made 
one  new  departure  in  which  you  have  gone  ahead 
of  us  Europeans.  Your  designs  for  houses  in  cities, 
and  perhaps  even  more  for  suburban  houses  and  sea- 
side cottages,  have  more  variety,  more  freshness,  more 
charm  than  the  designs  of  those  descriptions  have  in 
most  parts  of  Europe.  You  have  certainly  made  more 
use  in  cities  of  some  of  the  earlier  mediaeval  forms  of 
architecture  than  we  have  succeeded  in  doing  in  Eng- 
land, and  in  that  respect  your  recent  work  may 
show  more  originality  than  ours  does.  But  still,  you 
would  probably  agree  that  you  have  not  yet  succeeded 
either  in  inventing  a  new  style,  which  perhaps  may 
(for  all  we  laymen  know)  be  impossible,  —  for,  after 
all,  the  possibilities  of  invention  are  limited,  —  or 
in  so  combining  and  harmonizing  some  of  the  features 
of  different  styles  as  to  make  one  which  shall  be  dis- 
tinctive of  the  nineteenth  or  twentieth  century.  Now 
that  is  just  what  the  students  of  history  would  be  now 
looking  out  for  and  longing  for,  if  there  were  grounds 
for  expecting  it.  Three  or  four  hundred  years  hence, 
when  the  student  follows  the  course  of  the  develop- 
ment of  architecture  from  the  tenth  century  to  his 
own  time,  he  will  find,  as  he  descends  the  stream  of 


194      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

time  to  the  eighteenth,  that  there  is  a  regular  succes- 
sion of  forms  of  construction  and  decoration,  and  that 
he  can  approximately  fix  the  date  of  a  building  by  its 
general  style  and  structure  as  well  as  by  its  mouldings 
and  its  ornaments.  But  when  he  comes  to  the 
nineteenth  century  he  would  be  completely  at  a  loss. 
He  will  find  that  of  three  churches  erected  about  the 
same  time,  one  was  designed  to  reproduce  the  style  of 
the  twelfth  century,  another  that  of  the  fifteenth,  a 
third  that  of  the  seventeenth.  So  the  historically 
minded  layman  feels,  when  he  tries  to  project  himself 
into  the  position  of  an  historian  living  in  the  twenty- 
fourth  century,  that  this  latter  would  rejoice  to  be 
able  to  realize  what  the  twentieth  century  had  been 
doing  through  its  buildings  as  we  to-day  realize  what 
the  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  and  fifteenth  centuries  did. 

There  is,  at  any  rate,  a  wide  field  still  open  in  this 
country  for  inventive  genius.  You  have  had  several 
architects  of  unquestioned  genius,  and  will  doubtless 
have  more.  Your  wealth,  the  growth  of  your  popula- 
tion, your  noble  contempt  for  expense,  your  bold- 
ness and  grandeur  of  conception  are  known  to  all  men 
on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 

The  new  Central  Station  at  Washington,  with  its 
two  long  vaulted  halls,  is  as  fine  as  anything  of  the  kind 
in  Europe.  Still  vaster  and  more  majestic  are  the  halls 
of  the  station  which  the  Pennsylvania  railroad  company 
is  erecting  in  New  York.  I  have  seen  magnificent 
plans  for  the  decoration  of  Washington ;  I  have  seen  a 


ARCHITECTURE   AND   HISTORY  195 

still  more  wonderful  plan  for  the  building  of  a  new 
Chicago  out  in  the  lake,  a  plan  which  we  in  England,  or 
indeed  people  anywhere  in  Europe,  would  not  be  able  to 
consider  on  the  score  of  cost.  But  expense  has  for  you 
no  terrors.  I  will  not  say  that  there  is  nothing  that 
Congress  will  not  do  for  Washington,  because  I  am 
told  that  you  and  other  men  of  light  and  leading  have 
projects  looking  to  the  beautifying  of  Washington  for 
which  Congress  is  still  hesitating  to  vote  the  money 
required ;  but  I  know  that  there  is  nothing  that  Chicago 
fears  to  do  if  it  will  increase  the  splendour  of  that  great 
city,  and  I  dare  say  that  is  true  of  many  other  cities  also. 
He  who  marvels  at  the  gigantic  schemes  that  are  being 
attempted  in  New  York  and  Chicago,  is  ready  to  believe 
that  there  is  no  enterprise  designed  for  the  benefit  of 
such  great  communities  from  which  its  liberal  and 
large-minded  citizens  will  recoil  on  the  score  of  cost. 

I  congratulate  you,  therefore,  not  only  on  the  attrac- 
tions of  the  profession  to  which  you  belong,  but  on  the 
great  opportunities  which  are  open  to  you.  We  shall 
watch  you  from  our  side  of  the  Atlantic  without  any 
jealousy  of  your  superior  wealth,  but  with  admiration 
of  your  energy  and  with  high  hopes  of  what  you  will 
achieve  for  the  adornment  of  those  enormous  cities 
which  have  sprung  up  on  the  North  American 
Continent. 


THE   CHARACTER  AND   CAREER  OF 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

DELIVERED  AT  THE  CELEBRATION  OF  THE  CENTENARY  OF  THE 
BIRTH  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  AT  SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  FEB- 
RUARY 12,  1909. 


THE    CHARACTER    AND    CAREER  OF 
ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

DELIVERED  AT  THE  CELEBRATION  OF  THE  CENTENARY  OF  THE 
BIRTH  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  AT  SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  FEB- 
RUARY 12,  1909. 

You  are  met  to  commemorate  a  great  man,  one  of 
your  greatest,  great  in  what  he  did,  even  greater  in 
what  he  was.  One  hundred  years  have  passed  since  in 
that  lowly  hut  in  the  neighbouring  state  of  Kentucky 
this  child  of  obscure  and  unlettered  parents  was  born 
into  a  country  then  still  wild  and  thinly  peopled. 
Three  other  famous  men  were  born  in  that  same  year 
in  England:  Alfred  Tennyson,  the  most  gifted  poet 
who  has  used  our  language  since  Wordsworth  died; 
William  Gladstone,  the  most  powerful,  versatile,  and 
high-minded  statesman  of  the  last  two  generations  in 
Britain;  and  Charles  Darwin,  the  greatest  naturalist 
since  Linnaeus,  and  chief  among  the  famous  scientific 
discoverers  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  was  a  won- 
derful year,  and  one  who  knew  these  three  illustrious 
Englishmen  whom  I  have  named  is  tempted  to  speak 
of  them  and  compare  and  contrast  each  one  of  them 
with  that  illustrious  contemporary  of  theirs  whose 
memory  we  are  met  to  honour.  He  quitted  this 

199 


200      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

world  long  before  them,  but  with  a  record  of  great 
work  done  to  which  a  long  life  could  scarcely  have 
added  any  further  lustre. 

Of  the  personal  impression  he  made  on  those  who 
knew  him,  you  will  hear  from  some  of  the  few  yet 
living  who  can  recollect  him.  All  I  can  contribute 
is  a  reminiscence  of  what  reached  us  in  England. 
I  was  an  undergraduate  student  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Oxford  when  the  Civil  War  broke  out.  Well  do 
I  remember  the  surprise  we  felt  when  the  Republican 
national  convention  nominated  him  as  candidate  for 
the  Presidency,  for  his  name  was  hardly  known  on  our 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  it  had  been  expected  that  the 
choice  would  fall  upon  William  H.  Seward.  I  recol- 
lect how  it  slowly  dawned  upon  Europeans  in  1862 
and  1863  that  the  President  could  be  no  ordinary  man, 
because  he  never  seemed  cast  down  by  the  reverses 
which  befell  his  armies;  because  he  never  let  himself 
be  hurried  into  premature  action,  and  because  he  did 
not  fear  to  take  so  bold  a  step  as  was  the  Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation  when  he  saw  that  the  right  moment 
had  arrived.  And  above  all  I  remember  the  shock  of 
awe  and  grief  which  thrilled  all  Britain  when  the  news 
came  that  he  had  perished  by  the  bullet  of  an  assassin. 
There  have  been  not  a  few  murders  of  the  heads  of 
states  in  our  time,  but  none  smote  us  with  such 
horror  and  such  pity  as  the  death  of  this  strong  and 
merciful  man,  just  when  his  long  and  patient  efforts 
had  been  crowned  with  victory,  and  peace  was  begin- 


THE   CHARACTER  AND   CAREER  OF  LINCOLN      201 

ning  to  shed  her  rays  over  a  land  laid  waste  by  the 
march  of  armies. 

We  in  England  then  already  felt  that  a  great  as 
well  as  a  good  man  had  departed,  though  it  remained 
for  later  years  to  enable  us  all  (both  you  here  and  us 
in  the  other  hemisphere)  fully  to  appreciate  his  great- 
ness. Both  among  you  and  with  us  his  fame  has  con- 
tinued to  rise  till  he  has  now  become  one  of  the  grand- 
est figures  whom  America  has  given  to  World  history,  to 
be  a  glory  first  of  this  country,  then  also  of  mankind. 

A  man  may  be  great  by  intellect  or  by  character 
or  by  both.  The  highest  men  are  great  by  both; 
and  of  these  was  Abraham  Lincoln.  Endowed  with 
powers  that  were  solid  rather  than  shining,  he  was  not 
what  is  called  a  brilliant  personality.  Perhaps  the 
want  of  instruction  and  stimulation  during  his  early 
life  prevented  his  naturally  vigorous  mind  from  learning 
how  to  work  nimbly.  Yet  the  disadvantages  of  his 
boyhood,  the  want  of  books  and  of  teachers  and  of  the 
society  of  men  with  powers  comparable  to  his  own, 
were  all  so  met  and  overcome  by  his  love  of  knowledge 
and  his  strenuous  will  that  he  drew  strength  from  them. 
Thoughtfulness  and  intensity,  the  capacity  to  reflect 
steadily  and  patiently  on  a  problem  till  it  has  been 
solved,  is  one  of  the  two  most  distinct  impressions 
which  one  gets  from  that  strong,  rugged  face  with  its 
furrowed  brow  and  deep-set  eyes. 

The  other  impression  is  that  of  unshaken  and  un- 
shakable resolution.  Slow  in  reaching  a  decision,  he 


202      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

held  fearlessly  to  it  when  he  had  reached  it.  He  had 
not  merely  physical  courage,  and  that  in  ample  meas- 
ure, but  the  rarer  quality  of  being  willing  to  face 
misconception  and  unpopularity.  It  was  his  un- 
daunted firmness  and  his  clear  thinking  that  fitted 
Lincoln  to  be  the  pilot  who  brought  your  ship  through 
the  wildest  tempest  that  ever  broke  upon  her. 

Three  points  should  not  be  forgotten  which,  if  they 
do  not  add  to  Lincoln's  greatness,  make  it  more  winning 
and  attractive.  One  is  the  fact  that  he  rose  all  unaided 
to  the  pinnacle  of  power  and  responsibility.  Rarely  in- 
deed has  it  happened  in  history,  hardly  at  all  could  it 
have  happened  in  the  last  century  outside  America,  that 
one  born  in  poverty,  with  no  help  throughout  his  youth 
from  intercourse  with  educated  people,  with  no  friend 
to  back  him  except  those  whom  the  impression  of  his 
own  character  drew  around  him,  should  so  rise.  A 
second  is  the  gentleness  of  his  heart.  He  who  has 
to  refuse  every  hour  requests  from  those  whom  a  pri- 
vate person  would  have  been  glad  to  indulge,  he  who 
has  to  punish  those  whom  a  private  person  would 
pity  and  pardon,  can  seldom  retain  either  tenderness 
or  patience.  But  Lincoln's  tenderness  and  patience 
were  inexhaustible. 

It  is  often  said  that  every  great  man  is  unscrupulous, 
and  doubtless  most  of  those  to  whom  usage  has  attached 
the  title  have  been  so.  To  preserve  truthfulness  and 
conscientiousness  appears  scarcely  possible  in  the  stress 
of  life  where  immense  issues  seem  to  make  it  neces- 


THE  CHARACTER  AND   CAREER  OF  LINCOLN    203 

sary,  and  therefore  to  make  it  right,  to  toss  aside  the 
ordinary  rules  of  conduct  in  order  to  secure  the  end  de- 
sired. To  Abraham  Lincoln,  however,  truthfulness 
and  conscientiousness  remained  the  rule  of  life.  He 
felt  and  owned  his  responsibility  not  only  to  the  peo- 
ple, but  to  a  higher  power.  Few  rulers  who  have 
wielded  like  power  amid  like  temptations  have  so  stain- 
less a  record. 

To  you,  men  of  Illinois,  Lincoln  is  the  most  famous 
and  worthy  of  all  those  who  have  adorned  your  Com- 
monwealth. To  you,  citizens  of  the  United  States,  he 
is  the  President  who  carried  you  through  a  terrible 
conflict  and  saved  the  Union.  To  us  in  England,  he 
is  one  of  the  heroes  of  the  race  whence  you  and  we 
spring.  We  honour  his  memory  as  you  do,  and  it  is 
fitting  that  one  who  is  privileged  here  to  represent  the 
land  from  which  his  forefathers  came  should  bring, 
on  behalf  of  England,  a  tribute  of  admiration  for 
him  and  of  thankfulness  to  the  Providence  which 
gave  him  to  you  in  your  hour  of  need. 

Great  men  are  the  noblest  possession  of  a  nation 
and  are  potent  forces  hi  the  moulding  of  national  char- 
acter. Their  influence  lives  after  them,  and,  if  they 
be  good  as  well  as  great,  they  remain  as  beacons  light- 
ing the  course  of  all  who  follow  them.  They  set  for 
succeeding  generations  the  standards  of  the  youth 
who  seek  to  emulate  their  virtues  in  the  service  of  the 
country.  Thus  did  the  memory  of  George  Washing- 
ton stir  and  rouse  Lincoln  himself.  Thus  will  the 


204      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

memory  of  Lincoln  live  and  endure  among  you,  gath- 
ering reverence  from  age  to  age,  the  memory  of  one 
who  saved  your  republic  by  his  wisdom,  his  con- 
stancy, his  faith  in  the  people  and  in  freedom;  the 
memory  of  a  plain  and  simple  man,  yet  crowned  with 
the  knightly  virtues  of  truthfulness,  honour,  and 
courage. 


THE  SCOTO-IRISH   RACE   IN   ULSTER   AND 
IN  AMERICA 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  TO  THE  SCOTCH-IRISH  SOCIETY  OF  PENNSYL- 
VANIA, FEBRUARY,  1909. 


THE   SCOTO-IRISH  RACE  IN  ULSTER  AND 
IN  AMERICA 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  TO  THE  SCOTCH-IRISH  SOCIETY  OF  PENNSYL- 
VANIA, FEBRUARY,  1909. 

WHOEVER  wanders  hither  and  thither  over  the  United 
States,  as  the  occupant  of  the  post  I  hold  is  expected  to 
do,  finds  no  small  pleasure  in  noting  how  the  various 
racial  stocks  that  have  planted  themselves  in  the  United 
States,  and  now  make  up  its  population,  love  to  com- 
memorate each  its  own  race  and  the  land  whence  it 
came.  To  remember  Germany  or  Norway  or  Sweden  or 
Scotland  or  Ireland  does  not  make  a  man  any  the  less 
a  good  American  citizen,  and  it  adds  to  the  interest  of 
his  life  and  to  the  width  of  his  outlook  over  the  world 
that  he  should  feel  he  has  another  land,  another  race,  an- 
other literature,  other  historical  traditions,  with  which  he 
can  associate  his  memories  and  his  sympathies.  The 
man  of  German  extraction  has  Goethe  and  Schiller  to 
be  proud  of,  and  is  the  more  drawn  to  retain  or  to  learn 
their  tongue;  the  Icelander  or  Norwegian  may  read  the 
ancient  Sagas  of  his  land  and  stir  his  soul  by  recalling 
the  exploits  of  the  heroes  of  Viking  days.  So  even  for 
a  stock  like  the  Scoto-Irish  which  has  for  centuries  been 
a  part  of  the  British  race  and  speaks  the  English  tongue 
it  is  well  that  societies  like  yours  should  exist  to  recall 

207 


208      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

and  emphasize  the  further  and  more  special  tie  which 
binds  you  to  one  part  of  the  British  Isles  besides  that 
tie  which  all  Americans,  of  whatever  origin,  have  to 
our  island  realm,  in  language  and  literature,  in  tradi- 
tions and  institutions. 

Now,  gentlemen,  before  I  come  to  speak  of  this  Scotch- 
Irish,  let  me  say  in  passing  that  it  might  very  nearly 
have  been  a  Dutch-Irish  Society.  It  is  said  that  there 
was  a  time  near  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  when 
the  Dutch  of  the  United  Provinces,  being  then  very 
hard  pressed  by  Spain,  received  an  offer  from  the 
English  government  that  if  they  would  abandon  Hol- 
land and  sail  off  in  ships  that  were  to  be  provided 
for  them,  they  should  be  settled  in  Ireland  and  there 
receive  plenty  of  land  and  every  encouragement.  The 
Might  Have  Beens  of  history  are  always  an  interesting 
topic  of  speculation.  Had  the  British  offer  been  ac- 
cepted, the  incoming  Dutch  would,  as  Protestants, 
have  in  two  generations  blent  with  the  English  and 
Scotch  elements.  Ireland  might  have  been  a  half 
Dutch  country,  and  the  whole  subsequent  history  of 
the  island  would  have  been  different.  Whether  it 
would  have  been  a  history  of  peaceful  progress  I  will 
not  now  enquire  —  one  always  walks  over  hot  ashes  in 
discussing  Irish  history  —  but  it  might  well  have  been 
more  happy  than  were  the  annals  of  Ireland  during 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  Yet  what 
Ireland  might  have  gained  by  the  addition  to  her 
population,  then  far  less  than  the  island  could  support, 


SCOTO-IRISH  RACE  IN  ULSTER  AND  AMERICA     209 

of  a  valuable  and  industrious  element,  Continental 
Europe  would  have  lost,  and  the  East  too  would  have 
lost,  for  there  might  have  been  no  Dutch  Empire  there. 

Let  those  things  be  as  they  were,  or  as  they  might 
have  been,  the  historian  cannot  but  rejoice  to  see  that 
you  in  the  United  States  take  so  keen  a  pleasure  in 
recalling  the  different  racial  stocks  from  which  you 
come.  This  sort  of  connection  with  the  Old  World, 
a  connection  which  some  of  you  are  too  apt  to  forget, 
because  it  is  a  fault  of  our  tune  to  ignore  the  past  and 
think  that  it  does  not  matter,  adds  to  the  interest  of 
your  life  in  the  New.  It  adds  to  the  richness  of  your 
own  thoughts  and  memories  that  you  are  able  to  go 
back  from  the  country  in  which  fate  and  the  wander- 
ings of  your  parents  have  placed  you,  and  connect 
yourselves  with  some  particular  part  of  the  Old  World 
and  with  its  history  and  its  associations.  You  look 
backward  to  two  very  remarkable  stocks.  Your  posi- 
tion is  exceptional  because  you  look  back  not  to  one 
stock  but  to  two.  As  Scotch-Irish,  you  are  the  off- 
spring of  two  races:  one  of  them  —  the  Irish  —  is 
Celtic;  the  other,  the  Scottish,  is  half  Celtic  and  half 
Teutonic,  for  the  people  of  Scotland  are  a  blend  of 
two  Teutonic  elements,  the  Anglian  and  the  Norse, 
with  two  Celtic  elements,  the  Gaelic  and  the  Cymric. 
(There  are  also  the  Picts,  but  you  will  not  expect  me 
to  venture  to  say  who  the  Picts  were.) 

I  do  not  suppose  that  there  ever  were  two  peoples 
who,  considering  how  small  were  their  numbers,  have 


210      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

made  a  greater  noise  in  the  world  than  the  Irish  and 
Scotch,  and  you  claim  kinship  with  and  descent  from 
both  of  those,  the  Scotch  element  probably  contribut- 
ing most  of  the  blood. 

Like  other  great  and  good  things,  both  the  Irish  and 
the  Scotch  peoples  have  had  their  detractors.  Criti- 
cisms have  been  passed  upon  them.  It  has  been  said  of 
the  one  race  that  it  was  reckless,  dashing,  bold,  extrava- 
gant, imprudent.  It  has  been  said  of  the  other  race  that 
it  was  dry,  cautious,  even  parsimonious.  I  will  not  stop 
to  enquire  whether  these  charges  are  justly  brought 
against  either,  for  the  sufficient  reason  that  you  are 
neither  pure  Scotch  nor  pure  Irish,  but  a  blend  of  both, 
and  I  never  heard  any  charge  whatever  against  the 
blend,  except  that  of  having  "an  unco  guid  conceit"  of 
itself.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  well  understood  —  all 
those  historians  whose  tales  of  your  settlement  here 
and  achievements  for  America  I  have  perused  seem  to 
agree  —  that  the  Scotch-Irish  or  Irish-Scotch,  which- 
ever way  you  like  to  have  it,  combine  the  characteristic 
virtues  of  both  the  races,  that  they  unite  the  tenacity, 
perseverance,  and  shrewdness  of  the  Scotsman  of  Alban 
with  the  fire,  dash,  and  geniality  of  the  Celt  of  Erin,  and 
that  these  are  the  qualities  which  have  made  them 
valued  not  only  in  the  United  Kingdom,  as  I  shall 
presently  show  you,  but  also  in  this  land  of  their  adop- 
tion. So  far  as  my  own  personal  observation  goes  they 
have  really  only  two  defects,  and  those  defects  may  be 
deemed  to  be  rather  the  excess  of  good  qualities.  You, 


SCOTO-IRISH  RACE  IN  ULSTER  AND  AMERICA    211 

Mr.  President,  referred  to  the  experience  I  had  when  for 
fourteen  months  it  was  my  duty  and  function,  not  a 
light  one,  to  be  virtually  responsible  for  the  government 
of  Ireland  and  for  the  maintenance  of  law  and  order 
there.  I  found  then  that  there  were  only  two  slight 
defects  that  could  be  charged  against  the  peo- 
ple of  Ireland,  especially  of  the  north  of  Ireland, 
from  which  your  ancestors  came.  One  was  that 
they  valued  so  highly  the  right  of  free  speech  that  they 
were  hi  the  habit  of  expressing  their  views  of  politics, 
church  history,  and  theology,  and  especially  their  opin- 
ions about  one  another,  at  regularly  recurring  mo- 
ments, and  they  used  to  choose  for  those  moments 
anniversaries  which  long  habit  had  associated  with  party 
passions.  The  Protestants  chose  the  i2th  of  July,  the 
anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Aughrim,  and  the  Roman 
Catholics  chose  the  i  yth  of  March,  a  day  which  ought 
not  to  have  gathered  to  itself  any  partisan  associations, 
because  it  belongs  to  a  saint,  a  Briton  by  birth,  who 
had  a  sweet  and  saintly  character,  and  cherished  no 
animosity  except  to  poisonous  reptiles.  On  these  oc- 
casions historical  sentiment,  a  good  thing  enough  at 
proper  tunes,  frequently  gave  rise  to  scenes  that  were 
not  altogether  peaceful,  because  the  other  defect  I  have 
referred  to  —  which  might  again  be  described  as  the  ex- 
cess of  a  virtue,  —  their  manly  readiness  to  face  danger 
on  behalf  of  their  opinions,  led  them  to  be  decidedly 
more  combative  than  was  necessary  or  conducive  to  the 
peace  of  the  country. 


212      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

It  was  often  my  painful  duty,  since  I  recognized  the 
maintenance  of  order  to  be  the  first  and  most  obvious 
duty  of  my  office,  to  warn  each  party  that  they  must 
not  hold  meetings  in  places  where  there  was  likely  to 
be  an  armed  collision  with  the  other  party,  and  even 
to  direct  a  force  of  police  to  be  present  at  spots  where 
it  was  probable  that  collisions  would  occur  and  that 
combats  would  follow;  nor  was  this  duty  the  easier 
because  partisans  on  each  side  attacked  the  Govern- 
ment whether  it  permitted  or  prohibited  the  meeting. 
But  it  all  —  meetings  and  prohibitions,  and  even  colli- 
sions —  went  along  with  very  little  of  real  bitterness, 
one  might  almost  say  with  a  certain  measure  of  good 
humour;  and  no  one  who  does  not  know  Ireland  can 
know  with  how  much  good  humour  its  people  can,  as 
soon  as  the  actual  fighting  is  over,  look  back  upon 
the  conflicts  of  the  factions.  Strong  language  and 
even  a  little  fighting  are  understood  to  be  part  of  the 
game  which  the  parties  have  been  accustomed  to  play, 
and  there  is  much  less  of  bad  blood  and  ill  feeling  left 
behind  than  people  in  England  suppose.  Ireland 
is,  after  all,  a  very  charming  and  winning  country. 
Factions  in  Ireland  do  not  really  hate  one  another  as 
outsiders  are  apt  to  fancy.  They  have  been  fighting, 
more  or  less,  for  over  two  centuries,  and  have  got  ac- 
customed to  it,  and  take  it  less  seriously  than  is  sup- 
posed by  those  who  are  not  to  the  manner  born.  Some- 
times I  used  to  think  that  those  who  denounced  a 
Chief  Secretary  for  prohibiting  a  meeting  or  procession 


SCOTO-IRISH  RACE  IN  ULSTER  AND  AMERICA    213 

would  have  been  disappointed,  and  would  indeed  have 
thought  poorly  of  him,  if  he  had  not  issued  the  prohibi- 
tion. To  issue  it  was  expected  from  him,  and,  as  you 
might  say,  was  understood  to  be  his  part  of  the  game. 
Anyone  who  has  to  govern  Ireland  is  likely  to  come  hi 
for  plenty  of  criticism,  and  will  receive  most  of  it  when 
he  tries  to  be  absolutely  just  and  impartial,  for  then 
both  sides  fire  into  him.  But  at  the  same  time  he  is  cer- 
tain to  leave  the  country  with  sincere  regret,  feeling  that 
he  has  enjoyed  his  time  there,  and  loving  the  people  even 
more  than  he  did  before.  That  was  my  experience. 

Now  this  tendency  to  pugnacity  for  which  your 
ancestors  in  Ireland,  especially  in  the  north  of  Ireland, 
were  famous,  was  the  same  quality  that  led  the  Scoto- 
Irish  settlers  when  they  came  over  here  to  press  to  the 
front,  and  to.  take  up  the  borderland  of  Pennsylvania, 
protecting  the  more  peaceful  Quakers  and  German 
Moravians  who  lived  between  them  and  the  sea,  and 
choosing  for  themselves  the  arduous  task  of  subduing 
the  wilderness  and  defending  the  frontiers  of  civiliza- 
tion against  the  Indian  tribes.  And  a  very  fine  record 
they  made.  Many  of  the  most  stalwart  and  daring 
men  of  whom  this  country  holds  memory  were  the 
original  settlers  of  northern  and  western  Pennsylvania, 
the  fathers  of  the  men  who  passed  from  Pennsylvania 
across  the  mountains  into  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  and 
southward  into  western  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  and 
Georgia.  A  great  deal  of  the  best  blood,  and  a  great 
deal  of  the  finest  intellect  that  has  shown  itself  in  the 


214      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

history  of  the  southern  United  States  is  due  to  the  men 
who  sprang  from  that  stock. 

They  came  hither  for  a  reason  which  deserves  to  win 
sympathy  and  respect  for  them.  The  earliest  settlers  of 
New  England  left  Old  England  in  order  to  have  liberty 
to  worship  God  in  their  own  way,  and  the  earliest 
settlers  who  came  to  Pennsylvania  from  Ulster  came 
out  because,  having  been  brought  over  from  Scot- 
land on  a  promise  of  land  and  good  treatment  in  the 
north  of  Ireland,  they  found  themselves  ill  treated  and 
almost  persecuted  by  the  Episcopalian  government  in 
the  Ireland  of  that  day,  a  day  of  general  religious 
intolerance.  They  did  not  get  such  good  conditions  of 
land  tenure  as  they  expected;  and,  what  galled  them 
far  more,  they  were  not  able  to  obtain  that  full  freedom 
and  equality  for  the  exercise  of  their  religion  and  their 
civil  rights  which  they  were  entitled  to  count  on.  That 
was  one  main  cause  why  they  emigrated  to  these  colonies, 
and  one  main  cause  also  why  they  were  foremost  in 
vindicating  the  claims  of  the  colonists  when  trouble 
arose  between  the  latter  and  the  mother  country.  It  is, 
moreover,  an  interesting  historical  fact  that  the  system 
of  Presbyterian  church  government  which  these  settlers 
brought  with  them  had  much  to  do  with  the  formation 
of  a  republican  spirit  in  this  country  and  with  the  growth 
of  those  habits  which  enabled  your  ancestors  to  work 
republican  institutions.  The  machinery  of  that  system 
is  eminently  republican,  for  it  consists  of  representative 
councils,  leading  up  to  a  supreme  representative  body, 


SCOTO-IRISH  RACE  IN  ULSTER  AND  AMERICA    215 

the  General  Assembly.  The  traditions  and  habits  it 
had  formed  proved  useful  when  your  forefathers  began 
here  to  organize  the  constitutional  bases  of  your  Com- 
monwealths. One  of  the  foremost  champions  of  the 
claims  of  the  colonial  insurgents  was  a  Scotch  Presby- 
terian minister,  John  Witherspoon,  president  of  Prince- 
ton College  and  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence. 

You  have  heard  so  often  of  the  Scotch  Irishmen  who 
have  attained  eminence  in  the  United  States  that  I  need 
say  but  few  words  regarding  them.  It  is  a  long  list, 
even  if  you  omit  one  alleged  to  have  belonged  to  the 
Scoto-American  race,  Captain  Kidd,  the  famous,  or 
notorious,  pirate.  One  may  count  four,  five,  or  per- 
haps even  six,  Presidents,  and  you  have  some  claim  — 
I  am  not  sure  of  its  strength  —  to  a  man  greater  than 
any  of  those  Presidents,  Chief  Justice  John  Marshall, 
as  belonging  to  the  stock.  But  the  persons  who  have 
figured  most  in  American  history  have  been  the  fiery 
rhetorician  Patrick  Henry,  the  combative  and  some- 
times headstrong  Andrew  Jackson,  and  the  still  more 
remarkable  John  C.  Calhoun,  whose  relentless  logic 
gave  to  South  Carolina  the  impulse  that  made  her 
ultimately  the  leader  in  Secession.  Calhoun  applied  to 
politics  a  thoroughly  Calvinistic  line  of  thought,  though 
whether  it  was  Calvinistic  theology  that  formed  the 
logical  precision  and  liking  for  a  stringent  symmetry 
of  doctrine  that  belong  to  the  Scottish  mind,  or 
whether  the  Scots  took  to  Calvinistic  theology  be- 


216      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

cause  it  suited  their  natural  taste  and  bent,  might 
be  a  subject  of  enquiry  for  the  curious.  In  these 
men  the  lineaments  of  the  race  from  which  you  spring 
were  unmistakable.  In  its  later  ornaments  they  are 
less  evident.  Take  the  race  all  in  all,  it  has  deserved 
well  of  the  United  States.  I  will  not  dwell  upon  the 
inventors,  like  Robert  Fulton,  nor  upon  the  many 
estimable  clergymen,  local  leaders  of  opinion,  who 
edified  their  congregations  at  a  length  which  com- 
manded admiration  in  those  days  as  much  as  it  would 
repel  the  weaklings  of  our  own  time.  But  let  us  not 
forget  to  pay  a  respectful  tribute  to  the  men,  clerical 
and  lay,  who  worked  for  education  with  the  true  Scot- 
tish spirit,  and  also  to  the  pioneers  who  went  out,  south- 
ward and  westward,  from  Pennsylvania,  tough  and 
valiant  men,  prepared  to  face  the  hardships  of  a  lonely 
life  and  the  perils  of  the  wilderness,  carrying  with  them 
into  it  nothing  but  their  axe  and  their  gun  and  their 
Bible,  ready  to  spend  their  lives  in  winning  for  those 
who  came  after,  that  security  which  you  now  enjoy. 

It  was  a  strong  race,  one  of  the  strongest  that  has 
gone  to  the  making  of  this  now  composite  nation,  in 
which  it  is  beginning  to  be  hard  to  trace  the  several 
threads  that  have  been  woven  on  the  loom  of  Time  into 
the  tissue.  Some  students  of  history  have  wished  that 
each  racial  stock  of  settlers,  Irish  and  Germans  and 
Scandinavians  and  Italians  and  Poles  had  each  been 
left  to  occupy  a  region  by  itself,  where  its  old  idiosyn- 
crasy could  have  been  developed  under  new  conditions 


SCOTO-IRISH  RACE  IN   ULSTER  AND   AMERICA    217 

into  new  forms  which  would  yet  have  retained  a  touch 
of  the  old  quality.  But  perhaps  the  mingling  of  all  to- 
gether into  one  vast  nation  gives  to  that  nation  more 
flexibility  and  versatility,  and  makes  it  fitter  to  meet 
the  varying  calls  of  a  civilization  which  grows  always 
more  complex. 

Now  let  me  turn  to  the  Scotch-Irish  in  their  earlier 
home.  Having  spent  part  of  my  boyhood  in  Ulster 
and  frequently  revisited  it,  I  may  be  able  to  tell  you 
something  about  your  Ulster  forefathers.  When  I  first 
knew  the  north  of  Ireland  there  were  a  large  number  of 
people  there  who  spoke  broad  Scotch,  just  the  same 
broad  Scotch  that  you  would  have  then  heard  in  Ayrshire 
or  Galloway,  and  who  considered  themselves  to  be  for 
every  purpose  Scotch,  so  much  so  that  in  the  years  be- 
tween 1845  and  1850  I  have  heard  many  an  old  farmer 
in  the  County  of  Down  or  the  County  of  Antrim  talk 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Irish  who  inhabited  the  moun- 
tainous districts,  such  as  the  Glens  of  Antrim  and  the 
Mourne  Mountains,  into  which  the  Scottish  immigrants 
had  rather  unceremoniously  driven  them,  as  "Those 
Irish,"  or  (to  be  quite  literal)  in  broad  Scotch  they  said, 
"Thae  Eerish."  In  Down  and  Antrim  they  inter- 
married but  little  with  the  native  Celtic  population, 
because  the  latter  were  nearly  all  Roman  Catholics,  but 
there  was  in  those  days  a  less  pronounced  antagonism 
between  the  Scoto-Irish  Presbyterian  and  the  Roman 
Catholic  than  has  grown  up  in  later  days,  though  even 
now  that  antagonism  is  not  so  sharp  as  most  people 


218      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

outside  Ireland  suppose.  In  the  days  I  speak  of,  the 
Presbyterians  had  not  forgotten  the  league  of  the  United 
Irishmen  and  the  insurrection  of  1798,  in  which  many 
of  their  strongest  men  took  part,  having  been  drawn 
to  common  action  with  the  Roman  Catholics  by  the 
misgovernment  from  which  they  both  suffered.  Some 
of  the  Presbyterian  Liberals  of  that  generation  used 
to  say  that  if  the  Roman  Catholic  insurgents  of  south- 
ern Ireland  had  been  as  well  organized  and  had  fought 
as  well  as  the  Protestant  insurgents  of  the  north,  the 
insurrection  might  have  had  a  fair  chance  of  success. 

Otherwise  the  people  of  Antrim  and  Down  had  little 
or  nothing  to  do  with  Dublin,  the  capital  of  Ireland,  or 
indeed  with  any  part  of  Ireland  south  of  Carlingford 
Lough.  They  considered  themselves  to  be  Scotch,  and 
all  their  social  and  commercial  relations  were  with  Scot- 
land. Their  trading  was  done  with  Glasgow  or  other 
ports  of  the  west  of  Scotland.  Their  sons  who  were 
to  be  prepared  for  the  ministry  or  any  other  learned 
profession  were  sent  to  Glasgow  University.  In  fact, 
they  were  then  a  little  colony  of  Scotch  people  planted 
in  the  Counties  of  Down  and  Antrim  and  in  parts 
of  Derry  and  Tyrone.  I  knew,  sixty  years  ago,  old 
Presbyterian  elders  in  County  Down  who  were  as 
purely  Scotch  as  if  they  had  lived  in  Kirkintilloch 
or  Kilwinning,  but  such  men  would  hardly  be  found 
there  to-day. 

That,  however,  is  compatible  with  our  recognizing 
that  among  those  who  migrated  to  America  in  the 


SCOTO-IRISH  RACE  IN  ULSTER  AND  AMERICA    219 

eighteenth  century,  a  good  many  purely  Celtic  names 
may  be  found,  and  that  in  many  a  Celtic  quality  was 
present.  A  certain  number  of  the  Scots  who  migrated 
to  Ulster  intermarried  with  the  Celtic  Irish  in  Deny 
and  Tyrone,  and  a  certain  number  of  aboriginal  Irish 
became  Protestants  and  as  such  joined  the  Scoto-Irish 
Presbyterian  body.  There  was,  moreover,  in  those  who 
went  from  Scotland  to  Ulster  and  came  from  Ulster 
hither  a  good  deal  of  Gaelic  blood.  The  West  Highlands 
sent  Campbells  and  Macfarlanes  and  Macmillans  and 
Colquhouns,  and  there  were  plenty  of  Macs  from  Gal- 
loway. That  corner  of  Scotland  was  the  original  home 
of  most  of  those  Macs  who  were  at  one  time  so  numer- 
ous in  Pennsylvania  that  some  one  complained  of  the 
"Macocracy"  that  was  in  control  there.  However, 
whether  it  is  Celtic  blood,  or  whether  the  spirit  of  the 
land  itself  breathes  something  new  into  them,  certain  it 
is  that  the  Scotch-Irish  as  you  find  them  in  Ulster  now 
are  quite  different  from  the  Scotch.  Nobody  who  knows 
the  Scotch  people  well  could  to-day  mistake,  when 
he  goes  into  Ulster,  its  people  for  Scotsmen,  and  when 
you  meet  an  Ulsterman  in  England  or  Scotland,  you 
at  once  recognize  him  not  only  by  his  accent,  though 
that  is  even  more  different  from  the  brogue  of  southern 
Ireland  than  it  is  from  Lowland  Scotch,  but  also  by 
something  distinctive  in  his  way  of  thinking  and  acting. 
Even  a  man's  face  and  manner  will  often  indicate  that 
he  is  not  the  same  sort  of  person  as  a  man  from  the 
Scottish  lowlands. 


220     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

As  you  claim  that  the  Scotch-Irish  have  given 
many  men  of  high  distinction  and  usefulness  to  this 
country,  so  they  have  given  many  men  of  great  fame 
and  honour  and  service  to  the  United  Kingdom.  It  will 
suffice  to  mention  five  who  belonged  to  the  last  genera- 
tion. One  of  them  was  the  late  Lord  Chief  Justice  of 
England,  who  was,  when  at  the  bar,  one  of  the  most 
powerful  advocates  of  our  time,  a  strong,  if  not  a  very 
learned  judge,  —  Sir  Charles  Russell,  afterwards  Lord 
Russell  of  Killowen,  whose  name  is  no  doubt  known  to 
many  of  you  who  follow  the  profession  of  the  law.  He 
was  an  Irish  Roman  Catholic.  The  other  four  were 
Irish  Protestants.  One  of  them  was  Sir  Henry 
Lawrence,  one  of  the  most  gallant  of  our  soldiers  and 
the  heroic  defender  of  Lucknow  in  the  terrible  Indian 
mutiny  of  1857.  There  were  three  others  even  more 
famous.  One  was  Lord  Lawrence,  brother  of  Sir 
Henry,  who  was,  with  the  possible  exception  of  the 
Scottish  Lord  Dalhousie,  the  ablest  of  all  our  Indian 
administrators  and  viceroys  for  the  last  eighty  or  one 
hundred  years.  The  second  was  Lord  Cairns,  one  of  the 
most  finished  masters  of  legal  science  in  England  the 
nineteenth  century  saw,  a  most  powerful  parliamentary 
speaker,  a  great  advocate  and  a  still  greater  judge. 
The  third  was  the  grandson  of  a  Presbyterian  farmer 
near  the  village  of  Ballynahinch,  in  County  Down, 
whose  son  had  become  professor  of  mathematics  in  Glas- 
gow. This  was  William  Thomson,  afterwards  known 
as  Lord  Kelvin,  and  one  of  the  first  scientific  men  of  the 


SCOTO-IRISH  RACE  IN   ULSTER  AND   AMERICA    221 

century.  The  last  time  I  ever  sat  by  him  at  dinner  he 
told  me  that  his  father  had,  when  a  boy,  been  forced  by 
the  insurgents  of  1798  to  carry  food  to  them  just  before 
the  battle  of  Ballynahinch.  There  were  no  three  men 
who  stood  higher,  or  who  deserved  to  stand  higher,  in 
the  sight  of  England  and  Scotland  during  the  second 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century  than  Lord  Lawrence, 
Lord  Cairns,  and  Lord  Kelvin.  Those  three  men  came 
from  the  counties  of  Deny,  Antrim,  and  Down.  So 
you  see  that  in  England  and  Scotland  also  your  people 
can  claim  to  have  done  great  things.  Your  forefathers, 
when  they  left  Ulster,  did  not  take  away  all  the  strength 
and  vigour  of  the  old  stock,  which  continues  to  show 
its  quality  there  just  as  it  has  done  here. 

You  look  back,  as  I  have  said,  to  two  countries  as 
the  sources  of  that  mixed  race  from  which  you  sprang. 
How  different  has  been  the  fortune  of  those  two  coun- 
tries !  Scotland  had  her  troubled  times,  and  she  passed 
out  of  them,  and  since  the  union  with  England,  with 
the  short  and  unimportant  exceptions  of  the  Jacobite 
rebellions  in  1715  and  1745,  Scotland  has  enjoyed  peace 
and  an  ever  growing  prosperity,  and  although  at  one 
time  the  Scotch  excited  a  little  criticism  and  even  dis- 
taste in  England,  as  you  may  remember  from  the 
growlings  and  girdings  at  them  of  that  fine  old  typical 
Englishman,  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  still  the  Scotch  have 
made  good  their  footing  in  England.  They  have  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  a  fair  chance  at  anything  there  is  to 
win  or  enjoy.  It  is  no  disadvantage  to  any  Scotchman 


222      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

who  comes  to  England  if  he  desires  to  rise  to  any  Eng- 
lish office  or  emolument.  Four  out  of  the  last  five  prime 
ministers  of  England  were  Scotchmen.  The  present 
Archbishop  of  York  and  the  present  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  primate  of  England,  are  both  Scotchmen. 
So  you  may  see  that  the  Scotchman  has  a  free  field  open 
to  him  in  England.  Scotland  has  been,  in  her  union 
with  England,  a  happy  and  prosperous  country.  I 
wish  I  could  say  the  same  for  Ireland.  Ireland,  too, 
has  given  many  great  and  famous  men  to  England  be- 
sides those  Ulstermen  whose  names  I  mentioned  to 
you  just  now.  There  have  been  no  orators  more  illus- 
trious, few  indeed  so  illustrious,  in  the  long  line  of  Eng- 
lish oratory  and  statesmanship,  as  four  Irishmen  who 
flourished  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  Curran, 
Plunkett,  Grattan,  and,  above  all,  Edmund  Burke,  per- 
haps the  only  person  in  modern  times  who  was  not  only 
a  great  statesman  and  orator  but  also  one  of  the  greatest 
prose  writers  of  his  day.  Any  country  that  produced 
four  men  like  Curran,  Plunkett,  Grattan,  and  Burke, 
and  produced  them  all  practically  in  the  same  genera- 
tion, has  rendered  a  service  to  England  and  to  the  glory 
of  the  English  tongue  which  Englishmen  and  Americans 
ought  never  to  forget.  I  might  speak  also  of  many 
famous  lights  of  literature,  such  as  Swift,  Sheridan,  and 
Goldsmith,  to  whom  the  Island  of  the  Saints  has  given 
birth;  but  everyone  admits  what  Ireland  has  achieved 
in  those  directions.  No  more  against  Irishmen  than 
against  Scotsmen  is  there  now  any  prejudice  in  England. 


SCOTO-IRISH  RACE  IN  ULSTER  AND  AMERICA    223 

England  is  too  great  to  be  ungenerous ;  she  can  afford 
to  give  credit  to  all  the  smaller  sister  nationalities  for 
all  the  contributions  they  have  made  to  the  common 
greatness  of  the  nation. 

And  yet  there  are  many  painful  pages  in  the  history  of 
the  relations  of  Ireland  and  England.  I  am  glad,  there- 
fore, to  tell  you,  as  I  am  sure  that  your  sympathy  con- 
tinues to  extend  itself  to  Ireland,  and  that  your  hearts 
beat  for  Ireland  as  one  of  the  two  countries  to  which 
your  ancestors  belonged,  that  I  believe  a  better  day 
has  dawned  for  that  island,  and  especially  for  the  rela- 
tions between  her  and  England.  Within  the  last  thirty 
years  there  has  come  about  an  understanding  and  a 
sympathy  between  the  great  mass  and  body  of  the 
British  people  and  the  Irish  people  such  as  never  ex- 
isted before.  Few  people  on  this  side  the  Atlantic 
realize  how  much  the  British  parliament  has  done  of 
late  years  to  ameliorate  by  better  legislation  and  by 
liberal  grants  of  money  what  was  once  the  lamentable 
condition  of  the  Irish  peasantry.  No  one  who  knew 
Ireland  fifty  years  ago  can  travel  through  it  now  without 
being  struck  by  the  enormous  improvements  effected. 
Dwellings  have  been  erected  for  the  labourers  all  over  the 
country.  The  people  are  better  fed  and  better  clothed. 
They  have  money  in  the  savings  banks,  and  their  children 
are  at  school.  At  this  moment  nearly  half  the  land  of 
Ireland  has  passed,  and  within  the  next  twenty  years  I 
believe  practically  the  whole  of  the  land  of  Ireland  will 
have  passed,  into  the  hands  of  the  small  farmers  of  Ireland 


224     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

who  are  cultivating  it,  and  therewith  that  land  hunger 
and  those  land  disputes  which  have  been  the  most  fruit- 
ful source  of  trouble  and  discontent  in  Ireland  will  have 
been  assuaged  and  set  at  rest. 

The  British  people  are  now  genuinely  anxious  and 
wishful  to  do  all  they  can  for  the  Irish  people,  and  I 
believe  the  Irish  people  have  come  to  understand  it. 
In  Ireland  there  is  no  longer  that  bitterness  towards 
the  English  which  once  existed,  and  it  surprises  me 
to  find  how  little  some  Irishmen  and  sons  of  Irishmen 
here  in  the  United  States  understand  the  change  for 
the  better  that  has  come  to  pass.  It  is  true  that  those 
who  cherish  the  old  rancour  are  now  comparatively  few, 
but  it  is  a  pity  that  there  should  be  any  who  retain 
sentiments  for  which  there  was  ground  fifty  years  ago, 
but  for  which  there  is  none  to-day.  In  Ireland  itself, 
as  well  as  in  England,  there  is  assuredly  a  far  better 
and  more  kindly  feeling  than  ever  there  was  before, 
and  we  confidently  look  forward  to  the  time  when,  just 
as  the  memory  of  ancient  wars  no  longer  impairs  the 
friendship  of  Englishmen  and  Scotchmen,  so  the  dissen- 
sions that  in  the  past  have  divided  Ireland  and  England 
and  produced  recurrent  strife  in  Ireland  herself  will  have 
been  forgotten,  and  both  will  be  contented  and  friendly 
members  of  one  and  the  same  great  Empire.  Is  it  not 
a  great  blessing  for  any  country  when  it  can  feel  itself 
to  be  truly  united,  one  in  fact  as  well  as  in  name  ? 
Happy  and  strong  is  that  country  which  can  remember 
the  struggles  and  conflicts  of  the  past  only  as  a  record 


SCOTO-IRISH  RACE   IN   ULSTER  AND  AMERICA    225 

of  deeds  of  valour  and  self-sacrifice,  and  can  bring  all 
its  children  together  to  unite  in  honouring  the  heroes 
of  the  past,  to  whichever  side  or  party  they  belonged. 
That  happened  long  ago  as  between  Scotland  and 
England;  nations  that  strove  fiercely  against  one  an- 
.  other  for  three  hundred  years.  That  has  been  your 
good  fortune  here  in  the  United  States.  I  was  pro- 
foundly struck  by  this  last  week,  when  I  went  to 
Springfield  to  honour  the  memory  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
on  the  centenary  of  his  birth.  It  was  impressive  to  see 
how,  not  only  there  in  his  own  State  of  Illinois,  and  in 
the  city  where  he  had  made  his  home,  but  everywhere 
over  the  country,  there  went  up,  from  the  banks  of  the 
Delaware  here  in  Philadelphia  to  the  banks  of  the  Colum- 
bia in  Oregon,  one  voice  of  admiration  for  that  noble 
character,  and  one  offering  of  thankfulness  to  the  Provi- 
dence that  had  bestowed  him  on  you.  But  what  gave 
the  greatest  pleasure  of  all  to  those  who  wish  well  to 
your  country  was  to  perceive  that  no  discordant  note 
came  from  the  South,  and  that  in  many  parts  of  the 
South,  and  from  many  eminent  spokesmen  of  the  South, 
there  was  reechoed  praise  and  honour  to  the  memory 
of  Abraham  Lincoln.  So  may  it  ever  be  in  this  country, 
and  so  may  it  be  in  my  country,  too,  that  England, 
Ireland,  and  Scotland  shall  be  able  to  honour  not  only 
our  common  heroes,  but  the  heroes  of  each  particular 
nation  also,  and  that  those  who  hereafter  win  the  fame 
of  heroes  may  win  it  in  the  service  of  our  common 
country. 


WHAT  A  UNIVERSITY  MAY  DO  FOR  A  STATE 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  IN  THE 
GREEK  THEATRE  ON  CHARTER  DAY,  MARCH  23,  1909. 


WHAT  A  UNIVERSITY  MAY  DO  FOR  A  STATE 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  IN  THE 
GREEK  THEATRE  ON  CHARTER  DAY,  MARCH  23,  1909. 

EACH  time  I  come  to  California  —  and  this  is  the 
third  time  —  I  am  struck  more  and  more  by  the  fact 
that  California  is  not  only  one  of  the  greatest  States 
of  the  Union,  but  is  also,  unlike  any  other  state  of  the 
Union,  a  Country  as  well  as  a  State.  One  reaches 
California  either  over  the  vast  and  silent  ocean,  or 
else  across  two  lofty  mountain  ranges  and  through  a 
wilderness,  much  of  which  is  likely  to  remain  forever 
unpeopled,  a  scorched  and  arid  wilderness,  almost 
as  silent  as  the  sea.  One  feels  that  one  is  entering  a 
new  land.  There  is  a  new  dry  gleam  and  a  new  clear 
brilliance  in  the  sunlight ;  there  are  new  wild  flowers  and 
new  trees.  Everything  is  unlike  the  Mississippi  Val- 
ley, or  the  gently  undulating  plains  that  rise  from  it  to 
the  eastern  base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  California, 
moreover,  great  as  is  the  diversity  of  hill  and  valley 
within  it,  is  all  one  country,  not  cut  up  by  nature  into 
different  regions,  but  one  in  its  structure  and  general 
character.  Guarded  on  the  east  by  a  snowy  range, 
it  has  its  natural  centre  at  this  magnificent  bay, 
where  we  are  standing,  and  where  noble  mountains 

229 


230     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

look  down  upon  waters  blue  as  those  that  wash  the 
shores  of  Sicily.  The  bay  of  San  Francisco  always 
reminds  me  of 

—  the  sea  that  parts 
Trinacria  from  the  hoarse  Calabrian  shore. 

All  this  great  region  between  the  Sierras  and  the 
Pacific  was  meant  to  be  the  home  of  one  people  under 
one  government. 

Nature  might,  indeed,  seem  to  have  intended  that 
it  should  be  not  a  part  of  the  United  States  but  a 
separate  country  under  a  separate  independent  govern- 
ment; and  a  separate  independent  country  it  would 
no  doubt  have  been  but  for  two  causes.  One  is  to  be 
found  in  those  peculiar  political  and  social  economic 
conditions  which  brought  on  the  war  with  Mexico  and 
led  to  the  annexation  of  all  this  region  by  the  United 
States.  The  other  is  the  fact  that  not  long  before 
that  war  the  steam-engine,  invented  some  seventy 
years  before  by  James  Watt,  had  begun  to  be  applied 
to  transportation  by  water  and  land.  Although  some 
of  the  early  emigrants  crossed  the  great  plains  and 
threaded  their  painful  way  through  the  canons  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains  and  over  the  high  Sierras  in  wagons, 
it  was  steamships  and  railways  that  made  California, 
which  Spain,  and  after  her  the  Mexicans,  had  left  unde- 
veloped, really  a  part  of  the  United  States  and  attached 
her  indissolubly  to  the  great  Republic.  But  for  the 
two  causes  I  have  mentioned,  one  may  well  believe 
that  those  who  in  the  fulness  of  tune  settled  in  Cali- 


WHAT  A  UNIVERSITY  MAY  DO  FOR  A   STATE     231 

fornia  would,  whether  they  came  from  Europe  or  from 
the  United  States,  have  set  up  here  an  independent 
government.  Closer  and  closer  as  your  relations 
have  now  become  with  the  Mississippi  and  Atlan- 
tic states,  through  the  extension  and  improvements 
of  railway  communication,  —  closer  still  as  they  may 
perhaps  become  when  the  Panama  Canal  has  been 
completed,  —  California  still  wears  in  many  points  the 
aspect  of  a  distinct  country;  and  this  is  one  of  the 
things  which  makes  her  so  exceptionally  interesting  to 
the  traveller,  and  not  less  to  the  historian,  who  en- 
deavors to  study  not  only  the  history  of  the  past,  but 
through  the  past  the  probable  history  of  the  future. 

On  returning  here  after  twenty-six  years  I  am  struck 
by  the  enormous  strides  with  which  the  material  devel- 
opment of  the  State  has  advanced.  Some  of  its  cities 
are  growing  almost  as  fast  as  New  York  and  Chicago. 
Many  parts  of  the  country,  which  in  1883  were  scarcely 
inhabited,  have  now  become  rich  agricultural  dis- 
tricts. The  whole  country  is  moving  forward  at  a 
steady  pace,  which  makes  the  continuance  of  your 
material  wealth  well  assured ;  and  even  when  the  mines 
of  precious  metals  have  ceased  to  be  so  important  a 
factor  as  they  were  in  early  days,  your  agricultural 
resources  will  continue  to  promise  a  stable  prosperity. 
Great  advances  have  been  made  in  irrigation,  and 
vast  tracts  have  thus  been  made  possible  for  cultiva- 
tion. If  you  will  take  thought  in  time  for  the  saving 
of  your  forests,  and  will  replant  the  areas  where  forests 


232     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

have  existed  and  which  are  not  needed  for  agriculture, 
you  will  be  able  to  conserve  not  only  an  important 
source  of  wealth  in  the  timber,  but  also  the  undi- 
minished  flow  of  your  streams.  With  your  grain, 
your  fruit,  your  cattle,  and  your  sheep,  you  may 
confidently  rely  on  the  maintenance  of  the  chief  sources 
of  natural  wealth ;  and  if  you  desire  overflowing  riches 
and  a  teeming  population,  you  can,  humanly  speaking, 
be  sure  of  having  both  in  as  large  a  measure  as  you 
wish.  The  process  of  development  will  go  on  till  all  has 
been  got  out  of  nature  that  nature  can  render.  Then  at 
last  will  come  a  day  when  all  the  gold  and  silver  will 
have  been  won  from  placers  and  reefs,  and  all  the  soil 
capable  of  tillage  will  be  under  crops  or  laid  out  in  gar- 
dens or  orchards ;  when  railways  and  electric  lines  will 
have  been  constructed  sufficient  to  meet  the  needs  of 
the  population,  and  when  that  population  itself  will 
have  grown  to  figures  which  I  hardly  venture  to 
conjecture. 

When  all  this  has  happened,  what  next  ?  There  is  a 
story  of  an  Eastern  monarch  who,  in  the  midst  of  his 
career  of  conquest,  was  recounting  to  one  of  his  most 
trusted  councillors  what  he  had  done,  and  announc- 
ing what  further  expeditions  he  proposed  to  make. 
He  described  country  after  country  and  nation  after 
nation  which  it  was  his  purpose  to  overrun  and  sub- 
jugate, and,  as  each  was  mentioned,  his  councillor 
asked  him,  "And  after  that,  what?"  —  until  at  last 
he  had  enumerated  so  many  that  little  was  left  of  the 


WHAT  A  UNIVERSITY  MAY  DO  FOR  A  STATE    233 

then  known  world  over  which  his  armies  would  not 
have  been  triumphant.  But  the  councillor  at  the  end 
of  the  list  still  repeated,  "And  then,  what  next?" 
and  the  conqueror  at  last  could  only  say,  "Well  I 
suppose  we  shall  then  sit  down  and  enjoy  ourselves  and 
live  happily  for  the  rest  of  our  lives,"  —  to  which  the 
councillor  answered :  "If  happiness  is  the  goal,  why  not 
begin  to  be  happy  now  ?  You  have  already  got  more 
than  any  one  has  ever  conquered  before.  When  your 
plans  of  conquests  are  completed  you  will  be  weary  and 
old.  Let  us  take  our  enjoyment  now  ?" 

Some  question  like  this  arises  in  one's  mind  when 
one  contemplates  the  victories  over  nature  which 
men  are  winning  here  in  the  United  States.  You, 
indeed,  will  not  be  old  nor  weary  when  those  victories 
are  completed,  for  the  generations  that  follow  may 
well  be  as  forceful  as  your  own.  But  the  time 
must  arrive  when  the  American  people  will  have  prac- 
tically finished  with  the  work  of  conquering,  and  when, 
having  got  out  of  nature  all  that  nature  can  yield,  and 
applied  the  resources  of  science  to  industry  and  to 
commerce  on  a  scale  so  large  and  with  such  refined 
efficiency  that  there  will  be  little  more  motive  for  the 
accumulation  of  wealth,  they  will  have  to  ask  them- 
selves what  remains  to  be  done,  and  how  best  they 
can  enjoy  all  that  they  have  accumulated.  So  let  this 
question  be  put :  What  will  happen  when  California  is 
filled  by  twenty  or  thirty  millions  of  people,  and  its 
valuation  is  ten  times  what  it  is  now,  and  the  wealth 


234     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

will  have  grown  so  great  that  it  will  be  hard  to  know 
how  to  spend  it  ?  The  day  will,  after  all,  have  then,  as 
now,  only  twenty-four  hours.  Each  man  will  have 
only  one  mouth,  one  pair  of  ears,  and  one  pair  of 
eyes.  There  will  be  more  people,  as  many  perhaps  as 
the  country  can  support,  and  the  real  question  will  be 
not  about  amassing  more  wealth  or  having  more 
inhabitants,  but  whether  the  inhabitants  will  then  be 
happier  or  better  than  they  have  been  hitherto  or  are 
at  this  moment.  Although  that  time  may  be  still  dis- 
tant, you  may  already  begin  to  ask  yourselves  what 
the  development  of  natural  resources  and  the  acquisi- 
tion of  wealth  is  doing  for  the  lives  of  the  people. 
You  have  advanced  so  much  farther  along  the  path  of 
material  comfort  than  your  grandfathers  dreamed  of, 
that  it  is  not  too  soon  to  think  of  enjoyment ;  and, 
even  if  you  do  not  slacken  in  your  pace,  you  may  well 
reflect  upon  the  ultimate  amis  for  which  you  are 
working. 

How  can  the  University  help  you  to  think  out  those 
aims  and  to  choose  the  best  means  for  reaching  them  ? 
Few  of  us  reflect  upon  the  ultimate  purposes  even  of  our 
own  individual  lives,  still  fewer  on  the  ideals  towards 
which  national  and  State  life  should  move. 

What  you  all  wish,  what  you,  and  all  everywhere 
who  think  of  others  as  well  as  of  themselves,  set  up 
as  an  aim,  is  to  secure  for  the  people  as  a  whole  —  the 
poorer  as  well  as  the  richer  —  the  conditions  and  sur- 
roundings that  make  for  Happiness.  The  difficulty  is 


WHAT  A  UNIVERSITY  MAY   DO   FOR  A  STATE     235 

to  determine  which  are  the  conditions  that  will  be 
helpful  and  towards  which  you  will  work.  Let  us 
think  for  a  moment  of  these  as  they  affect  rural  life 
and  city  life  in  your  State. 

One  is  told  that  in  California  as  well  as  everywhere 
else  the  tendency  is  for  the  dwellers  in  the  country  to 
flock  into  the  cities.  Yet  in  California  the  conditions 
for  an  enjoyable  rural  life  are  especially  favorable. 
The  scenery  is  beautiful  and  the  climate  genial  as 
well  as  invigorating.  Except  in  the  high  mountains 
you  have  no  such  grim  winter  as  that  of  the  North 
Atlantic  states.  Nobody  who  has  enjoyed  this  climate 
wishes  to  go  back  either  to  Europe  or  to  eastern 
America.  In  many  parts  of  your  State  the  yield  of 
the  soil  is  so  large  that  the  cultivators  dwell  near 
together,  living  under  good  conditions  and  in  populous 
communities.  Here,  therefore,  if  anywhere,  country 
life  ought  to  be  attractive.  Yet  even  here,  one  is  told, 
the  dislike  for  what  is  deemed  the  comparative  solitude 
and  isolation  of  rural  life,  together  with  the  restless 
passion  for  amusement,  produce  a  steady  drain  away 
from  the  land  into  the  city.  In  California  two  great 
cities,  San  Francisco  (including  Oakland  and  Berkeley, 
which  for  this  purpose  may  be  deemed  parts  of  it)  and 
Los  Angeles,  have  two-fifths  of  the  whole  population 
of  the  State  and  are  growing  more  rapidly  than  the 
State  grows. 

This  is  unfortunate.  It  is  far  better  for  the  health 
and  physical  stamina  of  a  people  that  the  bulk  of  them 


236      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

should  live  in  the  country  and  work  there  with  plenty  of 
fresh  air  around  them.  It  is  better  for  the  national 
mind  and  character  that  men  should  be  in  contact  with 
nature  than  that  they  should  live  cooped  up  in  streets. 
You  remember  the  old  line,  "God  made  the  country 
and  man  made  the  Town."  It  is  better  for  the  polit- 
ical stability  of  a  government  that  the  town  dwellers 
should  not  outnumber  the  country  dwellers,  and  that 
there  should  not  be  many  vast  aggregations  of  men 
living  packed  tightly  together  and  more  liable  to  be 
moved  by  sudden  excitement  than  country  folk  are. 

A  large  number  of  small  farmers,  each  cultivating 
his  own  land,  constitute  an  element  which  gives 
solidity  and  strength  to  a  State.  Such  men  are  less 
eager  and  volatile  and  hasty  than  the  dwellers  in  cities; 
they  have  a  permanent  interest  in  good  order  and  the 
regular  working  of  public  administration.  I  will  not 
venture  to  assert,  as  some  have  done,  that  the  prepon- 
derance of  large  cities  is  necessarily  dangerous ;  yet  it 
is  undesirable,  both  politically  and  because  it  affects 
the  physical  health  and  vigor  of  the  nation. 

How  are  you  to  check  this  growth  of  cities  at  the 
expense  of  the  rural  areas  ?  One  means  is  the  im- 
provement of  rural  schools,  and  especially  of  agricultu- 
ral education,  so  as  to  teach  the  cultivator  how  to 
apply  science  to  his  calling,  and  to  find  pleasure  in 
applying  it.  This,  I  know,  your  University  has  been 
doing,  and  doing  so  earnestly  as  to  endear  itself  more 
and  more  to  the  people  of  the  State.  To  make  the 


WHAT  A  UNIVERSITY  MAY  DO  FOR  A  STATE     237 

country  children  interested  in  the  nature  that  lies 
around  them  is  to  furnish  them  with  a  source  of  en- 
joyment for  the  whole  of  their  lives.  Another  means 
is  the  introduction  of  cooperative  methods  among  culti- 
vators,—  methods  by  which  immense  progress  has  been 
made  in  Denmark  and  other  regions  far  less  favoured 
than  this.  The  extension  of  electric  railways  and  of 
a  cheap  telephone  service  contributes  to  reduce  that 
loneliness  of  which  many  country  dwellers  complain, 
while  those  of  us  who  are  tired  of  the  crowds  and 
noise  of  cities  long  for  rural  quiet.  My  chief  con- 
cern, however,  is  to  indicate  the  importance  of  the 
object  in  view,  and  to  observe  that  California  has  some 
advantages  enabling  it  to  set  an  example.  The  irri- 
gated districts  of  your  State  constitute  a  region  ex- 
ceptionally fitted  to  give  country  life  all  the  attractions 
that  should  induce  men  to  prefer  it  to  crowded  cities. 
The  farms  are  small,  averaging,  I  believe,  not  more 
than  twenty  acres.  Families  live  near  enough  to  one 
another  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  social  life.  It  is 
easier  for  people  to  organize  for  the  purposes  of  agri- 
cultural cooperation  or  for  social  ends. 

When  we  turn  to  city  life  and  its  conditions  we  are 
met  by  still  larger  questions.  On  the  political  side  of 
the  matter  let  this  one  word  only  be  said:  that  sound 
political  conditions  in  cities  are  the  first  and  essential 
condition  of  municipal  progress.  There  is  a  great 
deal  of  work  needing  to  be  done  in  Americans  cities 
which  the  municipal  government  ought  to  do,  because 


238      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

no  other  agency  can  do  it  so  efficiently  and  so  com- 
pletely. Yet  in  many  cities  much  of  this  work  is 
withheld  from  municipal  officers  and  councils  because 
officers  and  councils  are  not  trusted  by  the  people. 
Once  a  city  has  succeeded  in  placing  honest  men  and 
capable  men  in  control,  how  much  there  is  which  the 
government  may  accomplish  for  the  people,  —  how 
much  for  their  health,  for  the  proper  supply  of  light 
and  water  and  means  of  locomotion,  for  the  laying  out 
of  handsome  streets  and  their  adornment  by  public 
buildings,  for  the  provision  of  parks  and  playgrounds 
and  museums  and  libraries  and  art  galleries  and 
perhaps  concert  halls  also,  where  the  finest  kinds  of 
music  may  be  given  to  the  people  and  their  taste  for 
such  music  formed !  A  great  city  ought  in  all  these 
matters  to  be  not  only  the  guardian  of  the  material 
well-being  of  her  children,  but  also  their  guide  and 
instructress,  —  elevating  their  tastes,  displaying  to 
them  visible  shapes  of  beauty,  helping  them  to  knowl- 
edge and  enjoyment,  making  them  feel  their  common 
interest  in  intellectual  and  moral  progress.  A  finely 
ordered  city  might  be,  as  European  cities  have  before 
now  been,  as  Athens  was  in  the  ancient  world  and 
Florence  was  in  the  Middle  Ages,  a  source  of  inspira- 
tion to  those  who  dwell  therein ;  and  a  common  pride 
in  it  may  be  a  bond  to  unite  all  classes.  Some  few 
cities  have  already  set  an  example  in  this  direction; 
and  some  rich  men,  who  are  enlightened  as  well  as 
rich,  have  turned  their  wealth  to  the  best  account 


WHAT  A  UNIVERSITY  MAY  DO  FOR  A  STATE    239 

in  providing  beneficent  sources  of  enjoyment  for  their 
less  favoured  fellow-citizens. 

You  may  ask  why  I  speak  of  these  things  here  to  you 
in  this  University.  Because  it  is  one  of  the  chief 
functions  of  a  great  university,  a  duty  and  a  function 
which  no  other  organized  body  in  the  State  is  so  well 
fitted  to  discharge,  to  think  about  these  things  and 
to  impress  their  value  upon  the  minds  of  the  people. 
You  are  celebrating  to-day  the  anniversary  of  the 
foundation  by  the  State  of  this  central  seat  of  educa- 
tion and  learning  and  research,  the  mission  of  which  is 
to  represent  and  embody  the  organized  force  and  will  of 
this  Californian  community  in  promoting  all  that  makes 
for  intellectual  advancement  and  moral  elevation. 
Universities  are  lamps  which  cast  forth  their  light  on 
everything  around  them.  Besides  their  direct  and 
primary  duty  to  train  and  inform  the  minds  of  the 
youth  of  the  State,  supplying  the  knowledge  and  skill 
needed  for  the  work  of  life,  it  is  for  them  to  collect 
and  focus  whatever  science  and  learning  can  provide 
for  any  form  of  State  service.  Not  only  ought  they 
to  distribute  information  on  scientific  phenomena  and 
processes  applicable  to  agriculture  and  other  industries, 
as  some  State  universities  have  done  with  eminent 
success,  they  ought  also  to  place  their  knowledge  of 
economic  history  and  of  the  economic  conditions  of 
other  countries,  and  of  the  experiments,  whether  made 
in  those  countries  by  legislative  or  by  voluntary 
action,  at  the  disposal  of  the  administrative  officials 


240     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

and  the  legislature  of  their  State.  When  any  investi- 
gation is  needed,  either  of  a  scientific  or  historical  or 
economic  kind,  they  can  furnish  from  among  their 
teaching  staff  trained  investigators  whose  wide  range 
of  knowledge  and  mastery  of  method  will  make  them 
valuable  colleagues  of  the  practical  men  who  also 
may  be  charged  with  the  conduct  of  such  enquiries. 
In  short,  the  universities  of  a  State  —  and  this  applies 
also  to  your  great  sister  university  (the  Leland  Stan- 
ford) at  Palo  Alto  and  the  other  Californian  seats  of 
learning  —  should  act  as  its  organs  for  all  such  of  its 
efforts  as  need  a  broader  sweep  of  view  and  a  more 
perfect  mastery  of  exact  and  philosophical  methods 
than  the  ablest  man,  taken  from  the  walks  of  daily 
business  or  professional  life,  can  be  expected  to 
possess. 

One  danger  that  has  recently  begun  to  threaten 
university  life  seems  not  yet  to  have  attacked  the  State 
universities  of  the  West.  I  learn  with  pleasure  that 
you  have  here  kept  within  reasonable  limits  that 
passion  for  athletic  sports  and  competitions  which  has 
been  pushed  to  excess  in  England  and  Australia,  and 
which  in  some  American  universities  goes  so  far  that 
the  only  kind  of  distinction  that  students  value  is 
that  which  attaches  to  proficiency  in  these  competitions. 
Intellectual  excellence  —  so  one  is  told  —  is  in  these 
"seats  of  learning"  but  little  regarded.  It  is  the  ath- 
lete, the  runner  or  baseball  or  football  player,  who  is 
the  hero.  The  competitions  and  contests  of  football 


WHAT  A  UNIVERSITY  MAY  DO  FOR  A  STATE    241 

or  baseball  teams  excite  such  interest  that  not  only 
do  many  thousands  gather  to  see  the  match,  but  a 
vast  deal  of  time  is  spent  on  reading  about  the  perform- 
ances and  the  prospects  of  the  teams.  Thus  the 
minds  of  the  students  are  occupied  by  these  trivial 
matters  to  the  exclusion  of  interest  in  things  that  are 
really  fitted  to  engage  and  delight  intelligent  minds. 
This  is  a  strange  inversion  of  what  might  be  expected 
in  a  high  civilization,  and  a  strange  perversion  of  the 
true  spirit  of  university  life.  It  is  not  an  encouraging 
symptom.  It  reminds  one  of  that  inordinate  passion 
for  the  sports  of  the  amphitheatre,  and,  especially  for 
chariot  racing,  which  grew  more  and  more  intense  with 
the  decadence  of  art  and  literature  and  national  spirit 
in  the  Roman  Empire.  What  does  civilization  mean, 
except  that  we  realize  more  and  more  the  superiority 
of  the  mind  to  the  body? 

The  muscular  powers  should  by  all  means  be  kept 
in  perfect  efficiency;  and  the  pleasures  of  strenuous 
bodily  exercise  are  legitimate  and  valuable.  Having 
delighted  in  one  of  them  all  my  life  I  am  not  likely  to 
disparage  them.  No  one  who  knows  how  much  the 
sound  body  does  for  the  sound  mind  will  deprecate 
the  playing  of  games  by  students,  and  that  by  all 
of  the  students,  and  not  merely  by  an  exceptionally 
strong  or  skilful  few.  Of  such  play  in  hours  of  recre- 
ation there  is  nothing  but  good  to  be  said  :  what 
one  regrets  is  the  encroachment  of  this  passionate  in- 
terest in  competitions  upon  the  higher  interests  and 


242     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

enjoyments  of  academic  life.  After  all,  the  mind  is 
better  worth  cultivating  than  the  body.  It  is  by  the 
mind  that  civilization  advances  and  peoples  are  great. 
And  what  is  the  purpose  of  a  university  except  to 
enable  the  youth  of  a  nation  to  cultivate  those  mental 
faculties  which  they  have  to  exert  and  develop  through 
the  rest  of  their  lives,  when  the  few  years  fit  for 
violent  physical  effort  have  passed  ? 

I  have  spoken  of  the  teachers  and  the  students : 
let  me  say  a  word  also  as  to  the  graduates.  The 
universities  may,  through  their  alumni,  exercise  a 
powerful  influence  in  forming  the  public  opinion  of 
their  State.  In  most  parts  of  America  the  tie  between 
the  university  and  its  graduates  is  a  close  one,  closer 
perhaps  than  anywhere  in  Europe.  They  are  inter- 
ested in  its  welfare,  and  ready  to  come  forward  to  sup- 
port it  when  it  has  something  to  ask  from  the  legis- 
lature and  ready  also  to  raise  funds  themselves  for 
any  purpose  calculated  to  extend  its  usefulness.  They 
listen  with  respect  to  views  proceeding  from  its  Presi- 
dent and  its  leading  teachers.  They  form  associations 
of  their  own  in  the  principal  cities,  and  through  these 
often  do  much  to  raise  the  intellectual  and  civic  tone 
of  the  community.  They  are  usually  to  the  front 
in  all  movements  for  administrative  reform. 

One  class  of  graduates  in  particular  has  a  very 
important  part  to  play.  I  mean  the  teachers,  partic- 
ularly those  in  the  high  schools.  The  intellectual 
interest,  the  public  spirit,  the  literary  tastes  and  moral 


WHAT  A  UNIVERSITY  MAY  DO  FOR  A  STATE     243 

tone  of  each  generation  as  it  comes  to  manhood  very 
largely  depend  on  the  quality  of  the  instruction  and 
mental  stimulus  received  in  the  upper  schools;  and 
this  will  become  all  the  more  true  of  California  as  the 
influx  of  settlers  from  abroad  diminishes,  and  the  bulk 
of  the  population  is  home-born.  Now,  the  quality 
of  the  teachers  and  their  capacity  for  inspiring  fine 
ideals  in  youthful  minds,  depends  upon  the  spirit  which 
their  university  breathes  into  them,  and  on  the  high 
conception  it  gives  them  of  what  intellectual  energy 
and  intellectual  enjoyment  really  mean.  The  uni- 
versities are  the  natural  centres  and  culminating 
points  of  the  educational  system  of  a  State,  and  their 
influence  ought  to  make  itself  felt  all  through  that 
system. 

Lastly,  a  university,  being  the  visible  evidence  and 
symbol  of  the  homage  which  the  State  pays  to  learn- 
ing and  science,  has  the  function  of  reminding  the 
people  by  its  constant  activity  how  much  there  is  in 
life  beyond  material  development  and  business  suc- 
cess. Philosophy,  history,  literature,  art,  scientific 
discovery,  the  prosecution  of  all  those  studies  and 
enquiries  the  value  of  which  cannot  be  measured  by 
dollars  and  cents,  these  things  not  only  provide  un- 
failing sources  of  enjoyment,  but  are  ultimately  the 
foundation  of  national  prosperity  and  strength.  We 
are  all  only  too  apt  to  think  solely  about  the  Present. 
The  average  man,  be  he  educated  or  uneducated,  is  in 
our  day  so  busy  that  he  seldom  thinks  of  anything 


244      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

else.  But  the  university  is  a  place  where  those  who 
are  entering  on  life  learn  to  think  also  of  the  Past  and 
of  the  Future,  —  where  they  are  taught  to  rival  the 
great  men  who  have  gone  before  and  to  meditate  how 
they  can  carry  on  what  such  men  began  for  the  bene- 
fit of  those  who  will  come  after.  True  it  is  that  all 
we  know  of  the  Future  is  that  it  will  never  be  what 
the  Past  was.  As  the  Athenian  poet  says  —  this 
beautiful  Greek  theatre  of  yours  brings  the  lines  to  my 
mind  — 

"A-Travff  6  /Auxpos  KavapiOfJuqros 
Kal  (ftavevra 


The  law  of  change  is  universal.  Yet  it  is  mainly 
through  understanding  the  past  that  we  can  conject- 
ure what  the  future  will  be,  can  work  for  it,  and  can 
secure,  so  far  as  we  may,  that  to  our  State  and  Nation 
it  shall  come  fraught  with  blessing. 

When  I  think  of  the  future,  my  mind  turns  back  to 
California,  and  to  all  that  your  noble  State  may  be- 
come. You  have  made  it  a  State,  but  nature  made  it 
a  Country.  It  is  still  in  its  first  youth,  with  won- 
derful possibilities  before  it,  —  a  country  with  an  infinite 
variety  of  beautiful  mountain,  valley,  and  sea-coast 
scenery.  One  cannot  but  feel  that  it  is  destined, 
more  perhaps  than  any  other  part  of  the  United  States, 
to  develop  a  new  and  distinctive  type  of  art,  perhaps 

1  Long  and  unreckoned  time  brings  to  life  all  things  out  of  the  un- 
seen and  hides  them  away  again  when  they  have  been  seen.  —  From 
the  Ajax  of  Sophocles. 


WHAT  A  UNIVERSITY  MAY  DO  FOR  A  STATE     245 

of  landscape  painting,  perhaps  of  literature.  Your 
people  have  already  an  individuality.  They  are 
Calif ornians ;  they  have  something  all  their  own, — 
an  aspect,  a  manner  of  speech,  a  softness  —  so  one  is 
told  —  in  the  voice.  May  we  not  hope  to  see  this 
individuality  blossom  forth  into  products  that  are 
distinctive  hi  thought  and  in  poetry?  Your  scenery, 
your  social  conditions  in  their  earlier  stage,  inspired  two 
of  the  most  striking  pieces  of  literature  that  America 
has  given  to  the  world  in  the  last  half  century.  More 
will  doubtless  come  when  a  larger  part  of  your  people 
find  leisure  from  those  restless  efforts  to  develop  the 
material  resources  of  the  land  which  have  hitherto 
occupied  you.  Through  the  centuries  to  come,  in 
which  from  the  peak  that  stands  up  behind  this  spot 
generation  after  generation  of  students  will  see  the 
sun  mount  from  behind  the  mighty  Sierras  to  the  East 
and  sink  into  the  waves  of  the  Pacific  in  the  West, 
may  this  University,  enriched  by  the  liberality  and 
guided  by  the  judicious  care  of  your  legislature, 
ever  play  a  worthy  part  in  the  building  up  of  a  Cali- 
fornian  character  and  in  the  expansion  of  a  Californian 
community  that  shall  make  the  Golden  State  the  home 
of  a  happy  and  enlightened  people. 


ALLEGIANCE   TO  HUMANITY 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  LAKE  MOHONK   CONFERENCE  ON  PEACE 
AND  ARBITRATION,  MAY   21,  1909. 


ALLEGIANCE  TO  HUMANITY 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  LAKE  MOHONK  CONFERENCE  ON  PEACE 
AND  ARBITRATION,  MAY  21, 


ABOUT  the  blessings  of  peace,  about  the  horrors  of 
war,  about  the  value  of  arbitration  as  a  means  of  pre- 
venting war,  surely  everything  that  can  be  said  has 
been  said.  You  who  meet  here  to  promote  arbitra- 
tion and  peace  have  no  enemy  hi  the  field,  or  at  least 
none  within  the  range  of  your  artillery.  There  are 
still  persons  who  hanker  after  war,  and  therefore  dis- 
like arbitration,  but  I  notice  that  they  are  now  mostly 
reduced  to  one  argument,  viz.,  that  war  is  the  mother 
of  courage,  self-sacrifice,  and  other  virtues.  No  doubt 
these  virtues  may  be  displayed  and  have  often  been 
displayed  in  warfare,  as  in  many  another  department 
of  life.  So  courage  and  constancy  have  been  displayed 
in  a  still  nobler  form  by  martyrs  who  have  died  for 
their  faith.  But  we  do  not  desire  religious  persecu- 
tion for  the  sake  of  having  martyrs.  Courage  and 
loyalty  are  being  daily  displayed  in  many  another 
way  :  and  opportunities  for  displaying  these  and 
other  virtues  would  remain  if  war  were  to  vanish 

1  In  revising  this  address  for  publication  some  additions  have  been 
made  to  render  the  line  of  argument  more  clear. 

249 


250      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

as  religious  persecution  has  vanished.  We  need  not, 
however,  attempt  to  argue  with  the  people  that  delight 
in  war,  because  they  are  not  here  to-night  to  be  con- 
vinced. Those  who  dwell  on  the  benefits  of  war  do 
not  come  to  listen  to  us,  their  blessings  give  us  no 
chance  of  convincing  them.  The  Hawks  take  no 
interest  in  this  congress  of  doves.  Accordingly, 
whoever  addresses  such  a  gathering  as  this  finds 
himself  in  the  position  of  preaching  to  the  converted. 
It  is  an  easy  process ;  but  it  is  not  stimulating  to  the 
speaker  and  is  apt  to  prove  dull  to  the  converted, 
being  also  wholly  unprofitable  to  the  unconverted 
who  keep  out  of  the  range  of  fire.  If  the  latter 
were  here,  we  should  make  one  admission.  There 
have  been  some  justifiable  wars.  Where  a  so-called 
government  plunders  and  massacres  its  subjects,  in- 
surrection against  it  may  be  a  duty,  and  it  may  be 
right  for  other  nations  to  put  an  end  by  arms  to  op- 
pressions that  are  as  bad  as  war  itself.  Such  cases 
have  happened  in  Europe  and  may  happen  again. 
But  what  other  wars  in  our  time  can  be  deemed  to 
have  been  necessary  ? 

Our  discussions  at  all  these  peace  conferences  are 
really  discussions  in  the  abstract,  and  we  shall  not 
know  whether  the  cause  is  making  real  progress  until 
the  tune  comes  for  translating  abstract  resolutions 
into  concrete  practice.  No  doubt  some  progress  has 
been  made.  The  work  accomplished  at  the  Hague 
has  been  valuable.  The  creation  of  the  Hague  Court 


ALLEGIANCE  TO  HUMANITY  251 

and  the  reference  to  it  of  such  controversies  as  that 
which  the  United  States  had  recently  with  Mexico 
and  that  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Brit- 
ain relating  to  the  Newfoundland  Fisheries  mark  a 
real  advance. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  felt  that  the  risks  of  war  have  not 
disappeared,  and  the  strongest  proof  of  this  appears  in 
the  fact  that  all  the  great  countries  continue  to  go  on 
increasing  their  military  and  naval  armaments.  You 
have  heard  a  good  deal  already  here  about  armaments. 
Let  me  add  a  few  plain  words  about  them,  words 
suggested  by  what  I  have  seen  of  the  relations  of  the 
European  States  for  the  last  fifty  years.  There  are 
three  causes  which  have  induced  or  may  induce  nations 
to  maintain  large  armies  and  powerful  fleets.  One  is 
the  desire  to  aggress  on  another  nation.  As  to  this, 
be  well  assured  that  none  of  the  six  great  European 
Powers  has  at  present  any  desire  or  purpose  to  attack 
any  of  the  other  five.  Apart  from  any  higher  motives, 
each  has  its  internal  troubles,  each  knows  the  tremen- 
dous risks  any  attack  would  involve.  Such  wars  of 
conquest  as  belonged  to  the  days  of  Frederick  the 
Great  of  Prussia  and  to  those  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
are  out  of  date.  A  second  motive  is  the  wish  to  have 
that  weight  in  the  councils  of  nations  which  the  posses- 
sion of  military  and  naval  force  undoubtedly  gives  in 
such  a  world  as  the  present.  It  is  not  necessarily  a 
motive  making  for  war ;  all  depends  on  the  spirit  and 
intentions  of  the  nation,  or  its  rulers,  who  desire  to 


252      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

assert  their  influence.  A  third  is  the  feeling  that  a 
State  must  be  prepared  to  resist  aggression,  or  that 
extreme  form  of  aggression,  invasion,  by  having  the 
strength  needed  to  defend  its  frontiers. 

As  you  all  know,  it  is  these  two  latter  motives  that 
have  led  the  six  great  European  Powers  to  maintain 
some  of  them  large  fleets  and  all  but  one  of  them  large 
armies.  Each  is  apprehensive  of  the  possible  designs 
of  the  other.  Most  of  them  would  like  to  reduce  their 
armaments,  but  none  of  them  likes  to  be  the  first  to 
do  so.  In  such  circumstances  suggestions  looking 
towards  reduction  would  come  best  from  a  great 
nation  which  is  not  threatened  with  aggression  or 
invasion  from  any  quarter.  There  is  only  one  such 
nation.  It  is  the  United  States.  You  here  have 
no  enemy  in  the  world,  that  is  to  say,  there  is  no 
other  great  Power  which  has  any  ground  for  enmity 
to  you,  and  there  is  most  assuredly  none  which  has 
anything  to  gain  by  attacking  you.  If  you  remark 
that  Great  Britain  maintains  a  large  navy,  let  me 
ask  you  to  remember  that  she  is  obliged  to  maintain 
such  a  navy  because,  having  an  army  small  in  com- 
parison with  the  armies  of  other  European  States  and 
being  within  sight  of  the  European  Continent,  she  feels 
that  fleets  sufficient  to  guard  her  coast  are  an  absolute 
necessity,  a  costly  necessity  indeed,  but  one  to  which 
she  must  bow.  How  different  is  your  case  !  Against 
whose  attacks  is  it  that  you  stand  on  guard  ?  No  one 
dreams  of  invading  the  United  States.  You  are  three 


ALLEGIANCE  TO  HUMANITY  253 

thousand  miles  from  Europe  and  six  thousand  miles 
from  Asia,  and  the  offensive  power  of  a  hostile  fleet 
diminishes  rapidly  with  every  thousand  miles  from  its 
base.  Your  internal  resources,  your  wealth,  your  pop- 
ulation, the  intelligence  and  energy  of  your  people, 
added  to  the  advantages  of  your  position,  would  make 
you  strong  for  defensive  war  even  if  your  fleet  was 
much  less  than  its  present  size.  If  you  ever  again 
engage  in  war,  itfis  likely  to  be  a  war  of  your  own 
seeking,  for  nobody  will  aggress  upon  you.  Is  it  not, 
therefore,  now,  I  will  not  say  a  duty,  but  an  oppor- 
tunity specially  offered  to  you,  to  render  a  service  to 
the  world  by  taking  the  initiative  toward  the  reduction 
of  those  armies  and  navies  which  consume  so  large  a 
part  of  the  revenues  of  nations  and  increase  the  ap- 
prehensions with  which  they  watch  one  another  ?  As 
you  yourselves  would  say,  in  one  of  those  concisely 
expressive  phrases  which  you  teach  your  visitors  to 
use,  is  it  not  "up  to  you"  to  do  this? 

The  existence  of  immense  land  and  sea  forces,  kept 
upon  what  is  practically  a  war  footing,  increases  the 
risk  of  strife,  for  it  diminishes  the  period  that  would 
otherwise  elapse  before  fighting  could  begin.  It  keeps 
the  minds  of  nations,  and  especially  of  the  two 
great  fighting  professions  in  each  nation,  fixed  upon 
possibilities  of  war,  and  brings  those  possibilities 
nearer. 

How  oft  the  sight  of  means  to  do  ill  deeds 
Makes  ill  deeds  done. 


254     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

There  is  no  certainty  that  if  some  dispute  suddenly 
arose  inflaming  the  passions  of  two  nations  they  would 
refer  it  to  arbitration.  The  recent  arbitration  treaties 
which  your  government  has  concluded  with  other 
nations  expressly  —  and,  I  venture  to  think,  unfortu- 
nately —  exclude  from  their  scope  certain  kinds  of  dis- 
pute, those  which  affect  "  honour  and  vital  interests." 
The  making  of  this  exception  shows  that  governments 
have  not  that  full  confidence  in  the  application  of 
the  principle  which  many  of  you  may  desire.  Even 
where  the  case  is  one  that  does  fall  within  the 
terms  of  an  arbitration  treaty,  we  cannot  be  sure 
that  two  nations,  each  perhaps  irritated  "and  excited, 
may  not  prefer  to  resort  to  arms  rather  than  use 
the  machinery  for  securing  peace  which  they  have 
themselves  in  their  more  tranquil  moments  provided. 
All  the  virtuous  sentiments,  all  the  good  resolu- 
tions, may  be  forgotten  when  anger  and  suspicion 
suspend  the  reign  of  reason.  There  is  no  present  sign 
that  this  will  happen  in  our  time,  nor  does  there  now 
exist  any  ground  of  difference  between  any  two  nations 
which  could  justify  hostilities.  All  the  nations  both 
of  this  hemisphere  and  of  the  other  have  every  pos- 
sible reason  for  endeavoring  to  keep  the  peace.  In- 
terest —  to  say  nothing  of  conscience  and  duty  —  pre- 
scribes that  course.  Nevertheless,  when  we  remember 
how  often  in  the  past  governments  and  nations  that 
had  every  interest  to  keep  the  peace  allowed  themselves 
to  be  drawn  into  war,  and  how  disproportionate  the 


ALLEGIANCE   TO  HUMANITY  255 

alleged  causes  of  strife  were  to  the  real  interests  in- 
volved, we  cannot  be  sure  that  the  same  thing  may 
not  occur  again,  and  we  must  ask  once  more,  Why  is  it 
that  good  resolutions  are  so  often  forgotten  ?  Why  is 
the  practice  of  nations  so  much  worse  than  the  theory 
which  not  only  you  here,  but  the  leading  statesmen  in 
nearly  every  nation,  profess  to  hold  ? 

One  of  the  answers  most  often  given  is  that  the  ill- 
feeling  between  nations  which  leads  them  up  to  war 
is  due  to  the  press.  When  a  dispute  arises  between 
two  peoples,  the  newspapers  —  so  it  is  charged  — 
begin  in  each  country  to  misrepresent  the  purposes 
and  the  sentiments  of  the  other  people,  to  suppress 
the  case  for  the  other  country,  and  to  overstate  the 
case  for  their  own,  they  twist  or  embellish  facts,  and 
go  on  so  appealing  to  national  vanity  and  inflaming 
national  passion,  that  at  last  they  lead  each  people  to 
believe  itself  wholly  in  the  right  and  the  other  wholly 
in  the  wrong.  To  what  extent  these  charges  are 
justified,  your  recollections  of  how  the  press,  European 
and  American,  has  behaved  before  the  outbreak  of 
the  various  wars  in  which  great  nations  have  been 
involved  in  and  since  1870  will  enable  you  to  judge. 
As  respects  the  American  newspapers,  my  experience 
of  the  last  few  years  is  that  a  large  majority  of  them 
are  in  favour  of  peace  and  arbitration  and  not  at 
all  unfriendly  to  foreign  countries.  That  has  emphat- 
ically been  so  as  regards  their  attitude  towards  my  own 
country. 


256      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

However,  I  am  not  here  either  to  censure  or  to 
defend  the  newspapers.  They  can  take  care  of 
themselves.  But  hi  the  interests  of  truth  and  justice 
it  must  be  asked  whether  it  is  really  the  press  that  is 
chiefly  to  blame.  Public  writers  do  not  write  to  please 
themselves,  but  to  please  and  interest  their  readers. 
If  foreign  countries  are  attacked,  it  is  because  they 
think  the  public  expect  and  relish  such  attacks.  Men 
are  apparently  so  constituted  as  to  listen  more  readily 
to  blame  than  to  praise  bestowed  on  their  fellow-men, 
and  there  is  in  many  minds  a  notion  that  it  is  patriotic 
to  disparage  other  nations,  and  that  the  display  of  their 
faults  enhances  our  own  virtues.  Thus  in  each  country 
the  newspapers  try  to  meet  and  gratify  what  they  take 
to  be  the  wishes  of  the  people,  playing  down  to  their 
faults  rather  than  playing  up  to  their  virtues. 

Every  country  has  the  newspapers  it  deserves  for 
the  papers  are  what  the  people  make  them,  and 
reflect  back  the  sentiments  they  believe  the  people  to 
hold.  So  if  the  people  wish  that  the  organs  of  opinion 
should  show  a  truly  pacific  spirit,  friendly  to  other 
nations,  anxious  to  know  whenever  an  international 
dispute  arises,  what  the  case  of  the  other  nation  is, 
they  will  intimate  their  wish  by  ceasing  to  buy,  or 
by  withdrawing  their  advertising  from,  the  news- 
papers which  try  to  provoke  strife.  Thereupon  most 
of  the  newspapers  will,  in  their  desire  to  please  their 
public,  change  their  own  attitude,  will  abstain  from 
reckless  or  inflammatory  language,  and  will  supply  to 


ALLEGIANCE  TO  HUMANITY  257 

their  readers  such  facts  and  opinions  as  will  not  kindle 
passion  and  will  at  any  rate  not  tend  to  hinder  peace. 

Thus  we  come  back,  as  in  democratic  countries  we 
always  do  come  back,  to  the  People  ;  that  is,  to 
ourselves,  the  ordinary  citizens  who  are  the  ultimate 
masters  both  of  the  government  and  of  the  press. 
Why  do  we,  the  ordinary  citizens,  practically  en- 
courage the  newspapers  to  do  the  very  things  which 
you,  the  friends  of  peace,  blame  the  newspapers  for 
doing  ?  Why  do  we  like  to  have  other  nations  placed 
in  the  worst  light  and  their  defects  exaggerated? 
Why  is  it  thought  patriotic  to  decry  and  assail 
other  nations,  and  unpatriotic  to  indicate  any  faults 
in  our  own  conduct,  any  weak  points  in  our  own 
case  ?  Why  does  each  people  behave  as  if  it  alone 
were  virtuous  and  deserved  the  special  favor  of  Provi- 
dence, even  as  in  past  centuries  each  nation  used  to 
celebrate  a  Te  Deum  for  a  victory  its  army  had  won, 
as  if  the  Almighty  were  its  peculiar  friend  ?  It  knows 
that  every  other  people  also  thinks  highly  of  itself  and 
meanly  of  others,  and  that  each  has  about  as  much 
ground  and  no  more  for  so  thinking.  Yet  it  continues 
to  glorify  itself,  and  enjoys  hearing  the  other  nation  de- 
nounced and  vilified,  just  as  the  Iroquois  and  Algon- 
quins  who  once  roved  these  woods  hi  the  midst  of 
which  we  are  here  meeting,  used  to  hurl  opprobrious 
epithets  at  one  another  before  they  rushed  forward 
with  the  tomahawk. 

At  this  moment  all  the  governments  in  all  the  great 


258      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

military  and  naval  States  are  (I  venture  to  believe) 
honestly  desirous  of  peace.  Not  one  of  them  has  any 
cause  for  war.  Not  one  of  them  but  would  lose  by 
war  far  more  than  it  could  gain.  It  is  a  fatal  error, 
an  error  which  has  come  down  from  the  days  when 
barbarous  tribes  raided  for  plunder,  and  which  ought 
to  be  now  obsolete,  to  believe  that  nations  gain  some- 
thing by  a  successful  war.  Even  when  they  levy  an 
indemnity  upon  a  vanquished  enemy,  the  conquerors 
themselves  lose  in  commerce  and  industry,  and  often 
also  in  the  weakened  sense  of  security,  far  more  than 
the  indemnity  is  worth.  Civilized  governments  now 
know  this  and  wish  to  avoid  war.  Yet  it  is  appar- 
ently possible  for  those  who  desire,  from  whatever 
motives,  to  stir  up  suspicion  and  enmity  to  succeed  in 
convincing  each  nation  that  the  other  has  designs 
upon  it.  Quite  recently  this  was  tried  upon  your- 
selves. Much  suspicion,  much  alarm  was  aroused, 
without  the  slightest  justification,  between  you  and 
another  Power,  though  both  your  government  and  its 
government  were  perfectly  friendly,  each  desiring  to 
behave  well  by  the  other..  Any  man  of  sense  could 
see  that  Japan  had  no  possible  interest  in  provoking 
a  conflict  with  the  United  States.  Her  greatest 
interest  was  peace,  a  peace  which  would  leave 
her  free  to  deal  with  the  numerous  grave  problems 
that  confront  her,  in  Korea,  in  Formosa,  and  else- 
where, as  well  as  to  press  forward  her  internal  de- 
velopment. She  knew  that,  and  we  all  knew  that  she 


ALLEGIANCE  TO  HUMANITY  259 

knew  it.  Yet  this  insensate  attempt  to  represent  Japan 
as  ready  to  spring  upon  the  United  States  went  on. 
Why  will  not  people  do  a  little  thinking  before  they 
embark  in  such  a  campaign  of  exasperation? 

Every  nation  is  conscious  of  its  own  rectitude  of 
purpose ;  each  declares,  and  says  that  it  believes, 
that  its  armaments  are  maintained  for  its  own  safety 
and  will  not  be  used  unjustly  or  aggressively.  But 
each  one  is  told  that  it  must  not  credit  with  similar 
good  intentions  the  other  nation  which  is  for  the  mo- 
ment the  object  of  its  jealousy.  The  ordinary  man  is 
apparently  more  prone  to  believe  evil  than  good ;  and 
hardly  anybody  takes  up  the  cause  of  the  other  nation 
and  tries  to  make  its  case  understood.  That  would 
be  called  unpatriotic. 

Is  not  the  fault  then  not  so  much  in  the  press  which 
ministers  to  our  foibles,  as  in  ourselves,  that  we  are  too 
ignorant,  perhaps  wilfully  ignorant,  about  other  na- 
tions, that  we  do  not  try  to  understand  them  and  to 
imagine  what  we  should  feel  in  their  place  ?  Is  not  this 
one  chief  cause  of  the  atmosphere  of  suspicion  which 
pervades  the  relations  of  the  Great  Powers,  and  leads 
them  to  go  on  creating  the  enormous  armaments  and 
levying  the  enormous  taxes  under  which  their  people 
stagger  ?  Would  not  a  better  knowledge  by  each  na- 
tion of  the  other  nations  do  something  to  dispel  these 
suspicions  ?  Every  nation  must  of  course  be  prepared 
to  repel  any  dangers  at  all  likely  to  threaten  it.  But 
it  should  also  try  to  ascertain  whether  the  dangers 


260     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

it  is  told  to  provide  against  are  real  or  illusory,  and  it 
should  try  to  enter  into  and  realize  the  position  of 
other  nations  and  ask  whether  its  own  conduct  may 
not  be  exciting  in  their  minds  a  mistaken  impression 
of  its  purposes.  Suspicion  breeds  suspicion ;  and  na- 
tions have  sometimes  come  to  fear  and  dislike  one 
another  only  because  each  was  incessantly  told  that  it 
was  disliked  by  the  other,  and  that  the  other  was  plan- 
ning to  attack  it. 

Thirty  or  forty  years  ago  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
this  suspicion  between  Britain  and  the  United  States. 
Better  knowledge  by  each  nation  of  the  other  has 
extinguished  that  feeling  and  substituted  for  it  a  gen- 
uine friendship  which  will,  we  may  feel  sure,  at  once 
recur  to  arbitration  for  the  settlement  of  any  question 
between  them  that  may  arise.  Why  should  this  not 
be  done  as  regards  other  Powers  also  ?  Why  when  a 
controversy  arises  with  any  other  country  should  we 
not,  before  sharpening  our  tempers  and  our  swords,  try 
to  recognize  that  there  are  two  sides  to  the  controversy 
and  keep  cool  till  we  have  considered  the  other  side 
and  made  the  other  nation  feel  that  we  wish  and  mean 
to  be  reasonable  ? 

Our  country  is  not  the  only  thing  to  which  we  owe 
our  allegiance.  It  is  owed  also  to  justice  and  to 
humanity,  owed  to  our  fellow-men  in  other  countries 
as  well  as  in  our  own.  Doubtless  we  are  called 
upon  to  think  first  and  feel  first  for  those  whom  we 
know  best  and  for  whom  we  are  most  directly  respon- 


ALLEGIANCE  TO  HUMANITY  261 

sible,  our  own  fellow-citizens.  But  we  are  not  therefore 
to  forget  that  we  have  duties  to  the  other  peoples  also, 
and  those  duties  are  doubly  urgent  if  in  any  case  we 
think  that  justice  is  as  much  on  their  side  as  on  ours. 
True  patriotism  consists  not  in  waving  a  flag,  not  in 
shouting  "  our  country,  right  or  wrong,"  but  hi  so 
valuing  our  country  and  respecting  its  best  traditions 
as  to  desire  and  to  strive  that  our  country  shall  be 
righteous  as  well  as  strong.  A  State  is  none  the  less 
strong  for  being  resolved  to  use  its  strength  in  a  tem- 
perate and  pacific  spirit  and  for  putting  justice  and 
honour  above  all  its  other  interests.  Ought  not  the 
patriot  to  say  to  his  country  what  the  poet  said  to  his 
lady  : 

"  I  could  not  love  thee,  Dear,  so  much 
Loved  I  not  honour  more." 

It  was  well  observed  not  long  ago  by  Mr.  Root  that 
there  ought  to  be,  and  there  was  gradually  coming  to 
be,  a  public  opinion  of  nations  which  favored  arbitration 
and  would  condemn  any  government  which  plunged 
into  war  when  amicable  means  of  settlement  were 
available.  May  we  not  go  even  farther  and  desire 
and  work  for  the  creation  of  a  public  opinion  of  the 
world  which  has  regard  to  the  general  interests  of  the 
world,  raising  its  view  above  the  special  interests  of 
each  people  ?  Sixty  years  ago  the  progress  of  human- 
ity was  held  to  be  marked  and  measured  by  the 
growth  of  a  cosmopolitan  spirit  which  extended  its 
benevolence  and  sympathy  over  the  earth.  The 


262     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

strengthening  of  the  sentiment  of  nationality  was  then 
welcomed  as  a  means  of  helping  oppressed  or  divided 
nationalities  to  assert  themselves  and  secure  union. 
No  one  then  supposed  that  national  feeling  would 
reach  its  present  height.  It  is  surely  carried  to  excess 
when  men  think  only  of  the  glory  and  the  power  of  their 
State  and  forget  what  they  owe  to  mankind  at  large. 

A  very  distinguished  man,  one  of  the  keenest  observers 
in  this  country,  observed  to  me  lately  that  he  found 
there  was  to-day  less  of  a  kindly  feeling  towards  mem- 
bers of  the  non-European  races  who  settle  here,  such 
as  Japanese,  Chinese,  and  Hindoos,  less  indignation 
when  they  are  ill  treated,  less  anxiety  to  secure  fair 
and  just  treatment  for  them,  than  used  to  be  extended 
to  those  races  forty  years  ago.  My  own  observations 
have  shown  me  that  there  has  been  during  recent  years 
in  Europe  less  sympathy  with  those  who  are  struggling 
against  the  tyranny  or  cruelty  of  their  rulers  in  other 
countries  than  was  extended  fifty  years  ago  to  the 
patriots  who  then  fought  and  suffered  for  freedom  in 
Italy,  Poland,  and  Hungary. 

Have  we  then  gone  back  hi  this  generation?  Has 
the  sentiment  of  race  antagonism  grown  stronger  and 
the  love  of  liberty  where  others  are  concerned  grown 
weaker  with  the  growth  of  nationalism  in  each  country 
and  with  the  absorption  of  our  thoughts  by  the  social 
problems  which  we  are  trying  to  solve  at  home  ?  If 
so,  it  is  time  that  we  reverted  to  the  broader  and 
more  kindly  attitude  of  the  generation  of  Lincoln  and 


ALLEGIANCE  TO  HUMANITY  263 

Mazzini  and  Gladstone,  when  the  best  minds  did  not 
limit  their  good-will  by  colour,  or  by  creed,  or  by 
country,  but  sought  to  labour  for  the  world  as  well  as 
for  themselves. 

All  over  the  earth  the  fortunes  of  each  people  are  to- 
day more  involved  with  those  of  other  peoples  than  was 
ever  the  case  before.  As  the  possibilities  of  strife  are 
increased  by  closer  contact,  so  also  the  opportunities 
for  mutually  helpful  intercourse  are  also  increased,  and 
the  welfare  of  each  is  more  clearly  than  ever  before 
the  welfare  of  all.  I  do  not  mean  to  undervalue  any 
machinery  that  can  be  provided  for  settling  disputes 
and  furthering  the  desire  we  all  feel  to  attain  our 
common  aim  in  a  practical  way.  But  something  more 
is  needed.  We  need  a  spirit  which  will  not  merely 
hate  war  because  the  realities  of  war  are  hideous  and 
hellish  or  because  war  means  waste  and  destruction, 
but  will  love  and  seek  peace  because  it  desires  the 
welfare  of  other  peoples  and  finds  the  same  sort  of 
happiness  in  seeing  them  happy  which  each  of  us  en- 
joys in  the  happiness  of  his  own  friends.  Is  it  not 
the  mark  of  a  truly  philosophic  as  well  as  of  a  truly 
pious  mind  to  extend  its  sympathy  and  its  hopes  to  all 
mankind  ?  Would  not  the  diffusion  of  such  a  feeling 
and  an  appreciation  of  the  truth  that  every  nation 
gains  by  the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  other  peoples 
be  a  force  working  for  peace  and  good-will  among  the 
nations  more  powerfully  and  more  steadily  than  the 
best  arbitration  treaties  statesmanship  can  frame? 


THE  TERCENTENARY  OF   THE  DISCOVERY 
OF  LAKE   CHAMPLAIN 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  BURLINGTON,  VERMONT,  JULY  8,  1909. 


THE  TERCENTENARY  OF  THE  DISCOVERY 
OF  LAKE  CHAMPLAIN 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  BURLINGTON,  VERMONT,  JULY  8,  1909. 

MR.  PRESIDENT,  GOVERNORS  or  VERMONT  AND  NEW 

YORK  AND  GENTLEMEN  :  — 

You  are  met  to-day  to  commemorate  in  Vermont  a 
great  event,  which  it  is  fitting  that  you  should  com- 
memorate —  the  discovery  three  centuries  ago  of  that 
noble  lake  which  forms  the  western  boundary  of  your 
State,  and  is  one  of  its  greatest  charms.  When  we 
think  of  what  this  region  was  three  hundred  years 
ago,  one  can  hardly  believe  that  such  great  changes 
can  have  passed  hi  so  short  a  time.  Short  it  is,  if  one 
compares  three  centuries  with  the  long  ages  that  it 
took  to  effect  similar  changes  in  the  countries  of  the 
Old  World.  In  1609  the  spot  on  which  we  are  standing 
in  the  centre  of  a  flourishing  city  was  in  the  midst  of 
a  solemn  and  awe-inspiring  wilderness.  What  daring 
it  must  have  needed  to  explore  those  vast  and  soli- 
tary forests,  —  solitary  because  the  Indian  tribes,  al- 
ways at  war  with  one  another,  had  desolated  them 
by  continual  strife,  leaving  hardly  a  man  alive  through 
enormous  tracts;  and  how  venturesome  a  spirit  that 
have  been  of  the  men  who  traversing  in  frail  canoes 

267 


268      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

long  stretches  of  rivers  and  lakes,  shooting  dangerous 
rapids,  following  difficult  trails  through  dense  woods 
with  no  guide  except  the  savages,  on  whom  they 
could  not  always  rely,  woods  filled  with  wild  beasts 
and  with  tribes  more  dangerous  than  any  beasts;  — 
what  hearts  of  steel  the  men  must  have  had  who, 
far  away  from  all  hope  of  succour,  made  those  dis- 
coveries the  fruits  of  which  you  now  enjoy! 

When  Champlain's  Indian  guides  first  paddled  his 
canoe  over  the  shining  waters  of  your  lake,  there  was 
no  European  settlement  nearer  this  spot  than  the 
little  English  colony  planted  two  years  before  on  the 
James  River  in  Virginia,  and  you  may  be  sure  that 
Champlain  did  not  wish  that  the  English  were  any 
nearer,  for  the  settlers  whom  he  had  left  on  Mount 
Desert  Island  fared  ill  at  the  hands  of  English  enemies. 
It  was  in  this  same  year  1609  that  Henry  Hudson  first 
steered  his  Dutch  ship  up  the  waters  of  that  Hudson 
River  with  which  your  lake  is  now  connected  by  a 
canal.  And  if  Hudson  had  travelled  north  through  the 
woods  from  Albany  and  Champlain  had  travelled  south 
through  the  woods  from  the  southern  end  of  this  lake, 
they  might  have  met.  Let  us  hope  they  would  have 
met  in  friendship,  whatever  were  the  jealousies  of 
their  respective  nations,  because  each  was  worthy  of 
the  respect  of  the  other,  for  in  both  there  dwelt  a 
valiant  and  unconquerable  spirit. 

The  men  who  discovered  and  explored  the  con- 
tinents of  North  and  South  America  make  a  wonderful 


DISCOVERY  OF  LAKE  CHAMPLAIN  269 

line  of  heroes.  If  you  begin  with  Christopher  Colum- 
bus and  go  on  to  a  man  who  was  in  some  ways  quite 
as  great,  certainly  as  great  both  in  nautical  skill  and 
in  courage,  as  Christopher  Columbus  himself,  —  the 
Portuguese  Magellan,  —  and  if  you  include  in  that  line 
John  and  Sebastian  Cabot,  Vasco  Nunez  de  Balboa, 
the  discoverer  of  the  Pacific,  and  De  Soto,  who  first 
reached  the  Mississippi,  and  Cortes  and  Pizarro  and 
Pedro  de  Valdivia,  and  such  great  Frenchmen  as 
Cartier  and  La  Salle  and  Pere  Marquette  and  Cham- 
plain  himself,  you  have  a  line  of  daring  and  gallant 
men  to  whom  the  history  of  the  world  forms  no  parallel. 
And  among  all  those  Samuel  de  Champlain,  a  native 
of  the  seafaring  land  of  La  Rochelle,  first  of  the  great 
Frenchmen  who  explored  in  the  north,  was  not  only 
one  of  the  ablest  but  also  one  of  the  most  upright. 
He  was  equally  skilful  and  resourceful  on  sea  and 
on  shore.  He  knew  not  only  how  to  discover,  but  also 
how  to  govern,  as  his  management  of  his  colony  of 
Quebec  showed.  He  was  able  to  describe  with  wonder- 
ful accuracy  the  places  which  he  visited.  The  French 
Ambassador  has  told  you  how  well  he  narrated  the 
events  of  his  voyage  here,  and  described  the  features 
of  this  lake ;  and  the  people  of  Mount  Desert  Island 
will  tell  you  that  the  accounts  he  has  left  of  their  shores 
are  so  accurate  that  you  may  still  navigate  the  sea  along 
that  coast  by  the  description  he  gave  of  the  bays  and 
promontories  with  their  fringing  isles.  He  was  ready 
to  fight  when  the  time  came  for  fighting,  but  he  had 


270     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

no  wish  to  shed  blood.  He  inspired  confidence  in 
his  followers,  for  he  was  not  only  brave  but  also  gentle 
and  considerate  —  much  more  considerate  of  his  follow- 
ers than  was  the  not  less  daring  La  Salle.  And  he 
thought  first  of  France  and  of  the  faith  which  he  came 
to  propagate,  and  last  of  himself.  Samuel  de  Champlain 
was,  take  him  all  round,  what  we  call  a  fine  fellow. 
He  was  a  man  of  whom  his  country  does  well  to  be 
proud,  and  you  do  well  to  be  glad  that  your  lake 
should  bear  his  name.  I  like  to  picture  him  with  his 
Indians  paddling  up  the  long  stretches  of  the  river 
and  coming  out  upon  a  summer  evening  upon  the  glit- 
tering waters  of  your  lake,  seeing  it  stretch  farther  to 
the  south  than  the  eye  could  reach,  and  above,  on  each 
side  of  these  deep  waters,  the  long  ranges  of  steep  blue 
mountains,  in  which  is  framed,  like  some  exquisite  pic- 
ture, the  beauty  of  this  inland  sea.  We  are  told  that 
the  name  of  your  lake  in  Indian  is  "  Caniaderi-guar- 
unte."  Now  "  Caniaderi-guarunte "  is  said  to  mean, 
in  the  Indian  language,  "the  gate  of  the  country";  i.e. 
the  opening  by  which  men  can  pass  northward  and  south- 
ward through  this  rugged  region.  Everywhere  else,  to 
East  and  to  West,  the  drainage  basin  of  the  St.  Lawrence 
is  divided  from  the  basins  of  the  Hudson  and  the  Con- 
necticut rivers  by  lofty  mountains  and  forests  which 
were  in  the  days  of  the  discoverers  all  but  impassable. 
It  is  a  natural  highway  for  commerce ;  and  what  hopes 
for  dominion  and  for  trade  must  have  thrilled  the 
heart  of  Champlain  when  he  saw  this  splendid  sheet 


DISCOVERY  OF  LAKE   CHAMPLAIN  271 

of  water  stretching  away  to  some  unknown  extremity 
between  the  lines  of  the  mountains. 

It  was  an  age  when  the  growth  of  the  great  Spanish 
Empire  in  the  southern  parts  of  North  America  and 
over  most  of  South  America  had  fired  the  imagination 
of  other  nations  to  emulate  what  Spain  had  done,  so 
Holland  and  France  and  England  all  sought  to  create 
for  themselves  dominions  similar  to  that  which  Spain 
had  acquired  so  easily.  So  the  example  of  Champlain, 
who  came  to  found  an  empire  here  for  the  King  of 
France,  fired  many  another  bold  French  pioneer  after 
him,  until  Du  Luth  reached  the  farthest  corner  of 
Lake  Superior  at  the  spot  where  a  great  city  now  bears 
his  name,  and  until  La  Salle,  passing  up  Lake  Michi- 
gan, and  by  the  spot  where  now  Chicago  stands, 
crossed  over  to  the  Illinois  River,  and  then  descended, 
right  down  to  its  mouth,  the  mighty  stream  of  the 
Mississippi. 

Of  all  that  has  happened  since  those  days  of  Samuel 
de  Champlain,  I  have  no  time  to  speak.  I  cannot  tell 
you  of  the  long  process  by  which  Vermont  was  built 
up  and  filled  with  the  stalwart  race  of  the  Green 
Mountain  boys.  Those  sturdy  men  of  your  moun- 
tain land  were  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury what  the  Western  backwoodsmen  were  eighty 
years  later,  the  active  and  hardy  men  who  had  the 
qualities  which,  in  your  later  days,  you  associate  with 
the  pioneers  of  the  Far  West.  But  in  one  respect  they 
were  perhaps  better  company  than  the  men  of  the  Far 


272      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

West,  for  they  were  not  so  free  and  easy  in  their  use 
of  shooting-irons.  Perhaps,  however,  that  is  so  only 
because  in  those  days  the  revolver  had  not  yet  been 
invented.  Neither  must  I  attempt  to  describe  the  pro- 
tracted strife  that  raged  along  the  shores  of  your  lake 
between  the  Vermonters  and  the  men  of  New  York,  a 
strife  so  bitter  that  it  is  said  to  have  driven  Ethan 
Allen,  your  local  hero,  to  contemplate  returning  to  the 
allegiance  of  King  George.  Those  contests  gave  an 
occasion  for  the  display  of  that  admirable  quality  in 
which  the  citizens  of  the  United  States,  and  particu- 
larly of  the  northern  part  of  the  United  States,  stand 
preeminent,  a  strong  sense  of  justice  and  individual 
right,  and  a  pertinacious  determination  to  assert 
individual  right  by  every  method  and  device  known  to 
the  law.  These  long  differences  have  now  been  happily 
settled,  so  we  see  the  Governors  of  Vermont  and 
New  York  meeting  here  in  an  amity  not  likely  to  be 
again  disturbed.  You  have  no  interstate  controversy 
now,  and  the  only  question  that  might  have  grown  into 
an  international  controversy,  one  regarding  fishing 
rights  in  the  lake,  has  just  been  peacefully  disposed  of 
by  a  treaty  which  Mr.  Root  (who  was  with  us  yester- 
day) and  I  signed  last  year  establishing  a  joint 
American  and  Canadian  Commission,  with  power  to 
adjust  all  fishery  matters  arising  in  boundary  waters. 

How  different  have  been  the  fortunes  of  this  lake 
and  its  shores  from  what  its  discoverers  or  your  fore- 
fathers expected  or  foretold.  How  wonderfully  does 


DISCOVERY  OF  LAKE  CHAMPLAIN  273 

Fortune  make  sport  of  the  purposes  of  man;  how 
little  can  the  explorer  himself  tell  to  what  uses  settlers 
will  put  the  lands  to  which  he  has  cleared  the  path. 
Champlain,  besides  seeking,  like  Henry  Hudson,  for 
a  Northwest  passage  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  came  to 
establish  the  dominion  of  the  royal  House  of  France, 
to  spread  the  Gospel,  to  open  up  a  profitable  trade 
in  furs,  and  to  make  the  river  St.  Lawrence  and  this 
lake  great  highways  of  commerce.  The  monarchy  of 
France  is  gone,  the  Indians  whom  he  sought  to  convert 
are  gone,  the  furs  are  gone;  and  except  for  a  short 
time  when  the  trade  in  furs  was  active  along  Lake 
Champlain,  the  lake  has  never  yet  been  a  thorough- 
fare of  trade.  It  promised  to  become  one  when,  im- 
mediately after  the  first  steamboat  of  Fulton  was 
launched  upon  the  Hudson,  a  second  steamboat  was 
launched  to  ply  here.  But  soon  after  came  the  rail- 
road, and  by  the  time  that  the  lands  to  the  north  and 
south  had  been  so  filled  up  that  there  were  plenty  of 
passengers  and  freight  to  carry  to  and  fro,  the  swifter 
transportation  by  rail  had  superseded  water  carriage, 
and  it  is  now  the  railroads  and  not  the  steamers  that 
bear  the  crowd  of  passengers  to  and  fro  between  New 
York  and  Montreal.  However,  if  the  hopes  entertained 
by  some  enterprising  Vermonters  are  realized  and  the 
now  projected  deep  water  line  of  navigation  is  opened 
up,  it  may  be  that  the  dream  of  Champlain  will  at 
last  be  realized  and  that  your  lake  will  at  last  become 
that  highway  of  commerce  he  desired. 


274     "UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

But  now  it  has  become  at  last  a  dwelling  of  peace 
and  quiet.  No  more  warships  are  seen  upon  your 
waters,  no  more  forts  stand  armed  upon  your  shores, 
no  shouts  from  war  canoes  awaken  the  echoes  of  your 
cliffs.  We  have  been  celebrating  for  the  last  two  days 
on  the  other  side  of  the  lake,  first  at  Ticonderoga 
where  Frenchmen  and  Englishmen  fought  on  land,  and 
then  at  Plattsburg  where  Colonial  Americans  and  Eng- 
lishmen fought  on  water,  and  you  are  to-day  celebrat- 
ing here  in  Vermont,  a  veritable  festival  of  peace,  to 
which  my  dear  friend  and  colleague,  the  representative 
of  France,  has  come  to  mingle  his  thoughts  of  peace  with 
ours,  and  hi  which  the  soldiers  of  Canada  have  come  to 
parade  beside  your  soldiers,  to  be  reviewed  by  your 
genial  President,  and  to  be  welcomed,  as  they  were 
yesterday,  with  an  enthusiasm  which  thrilled  every 
British  and  Canadian  heart.  One  wonders  what  the 
future  has  in  store  for  a  lake  whose  history  has  been 
so  strangely  unlike  what  was  predicted  for  it. 

When  one  remembers  the  failures  of  prophets  in 
the  past,  one  ought  to  be  shy  of  making  any  prophecies 
for  the  future ;  yet  a  man  may  be  tempted  to  prophesy 
when  he  knows  that  the  truth  or  falsity  of  his  predic- 
tion cannot  be  known  until  long  after  he  and  those 
who  hear  him  have  all  disappeared  from  this  scene. 
So  I  will  venture  to  make  one  prophecy.  It  does  not 
seem  likely  that  your  shores  either  on  this  side  or  in 
New  York  State  on  the  other  side  of  the  lake  will 
ever  be  the  scene  of  any  startling  or  sudden  develop- 


DISCOVERY  OF  LAKE  CHAMPLAIN  275 

ment  of  material  wealth.  You  have  indeed  some 
fertile  lands  in  southern  Vermont,  and  some  mines  and 
marble  quarries,  but  you  have  not  here  the  coal  that 
many  other  parts  of  the  country  possess,  and  your  soil 
is  not  as  fertile  as  are  the  regions  along  the  Mississippi 
and  its  great  tributaries.  It  is  indeed  possible  that 
mineral  wealth  as  yet  unrevealed  may  lie  hidden  deep 
in  the  recesses  of  your  mountains.  Science  so  startles 
us  nowadays  with  strange  discoveries  that  we  can 
never  tell  what  store  of  minerals  —  possibly,  though 
so  far  as  we  know,  not  probably,  of  radium,  far 
more  costly  than  gold  —  may  be  discovered  in  the 
bosom  of  some  kind  of  rock  not  hitherto  known  to 
contain  it.  But,  as  far  as  we  can  look  into  the  future 
at  present,  it  would  seem  that  the  great  assets  of 
these  hills  and  valleys  of  Vermont  are  neither  minerals 
nor  fertility  of  soil.  But  there  are  two  other  assets. 

One  is  the  race  of  men  and  women  that  inhabit  it. 

You  men  of  northern  Vermont  and  northern  New 
Hampshire  and  Maine,  living  among  the  Appalachian 
rocks  and  mountains  in  a  region  which  may  be  called 
the  Switzerland  of  America  —  you  are  the  people  who 
have  had  hearts  full  of  the  love  of  freedom  which  burns 
with  the  brightest  flame  among  mountain  peoples, 
and  who  have  the  restless  energy  and  indomitable 
spirit  which  we  always  associate  with  such  lake  and 
mountain  lands  as  those  of  Switzerland  and  Scotland. 
This  bold  spirit  and  force  of  character  have  been  evident 
in  the  large  number  of  distinguished  men  that  you 


276     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

have  given  to  the  United  States,  and  in  the  hardy 
pioneers  and  settlers  which  you  have  sent  forth  from 
northern  New  England  to  reclaim  from  the  wilderness 
and  colonize  and  develop  western  New  York  and  Ohio 
and  the  rich  prairies  of  the  farther  West. 

The  other  asset  is  the  beauty  and  variety  of  the 
scenery  with  which  Providence  has  blessed  you.  No 
other  part  of  eastern  America  can  compare  for  the 
varied  charms  of  a  wild  and  romantic  nature  with  the 
regions  that  lie  around  Lake  Champlain  and  the  White 
Mountains.  And  as  wealth  increases  in  other  parts 
of  the  country,  as  the  gigantic  cities  of  the  Eastern 
States  grow  still  vaster,  as  population  thickens  in  the 
agricultural  and  manufacturing  parts  of  Ohio  and  Penn- 
sylvania, of  Indiana  and  Illinois,  one  may  foresee  a 
time  when  the  love  of  nature  and  the  desire  for  health- 
giving  recreation  will  draw  more  and  more  of  the  popu- 
lation of  those  cities  and  states,  which  will  then  be 
overcrowded,  to  seek  the  delights  of  nature  in  these 
spots  where  nature  shows  at  her  loveliest.  It  would 
need  the  imagination  of  a  poet,  or  rather  perhaps  the 
glowing  pen  of  a  real  estate  agent,  to  figure  out  to  what 
heights  the  value  of  landed  property,  and  especially 
of  villa  sites  on  these  shores,  will  have  risen  half  a 
century 'hence.  But  this  can  be  confidently  said:  The 
people  of  all  eastern  and  north-central  America  will 
come  more  and  more  to  resort  to  this  region  of  moun- 
tains and  lakes  as  the  place  in  which  relief  will  have 
to  be  sought  from  the  constantly  growing  strain  and 


DISCOVERY  OF  LAKE  CHAMPLAIN  277 

stress  of  our  modern  life.  And  one  who  values  nature 
and  loves  nature,  and  who  foresees  such  a  future  for 
this  part  of  North  America,  cannot  refrain  from  taking 
this  and  every  opportunity  of  begging  you  to  do  all  you 
can  to  safeguard  and  preserve  those  beauties  and 
charms  of  nature  which  have  here  been  lavished  upon 
you  in  such -abundant  measure.  Do  not  suffer  any  of 
these  charms  to  be  lost  by  any  want  of  foresight  on 
your  part  now.  Save  your  woods,  not  only  because 
they  are  one  of  your  great  natural  resources  that 
ought  to  be  conserved,  but  also  because  they  are  a 
source  of  beauty  which  can  never  be  recovered  if  they 
are  lost.  Do  not  permit  any  unsightly  buildings  to 
deform  a  beautiful  bit  of  scenery  which  can  be  a  joy 
to  those  who  visit  you.  Just  as  cultivated  fields  and 
meadows  add  to  the  variety  of  a  landscape  by  giving 
it  a  sense  of  human  presence  and  useful  labour,  so  also 
does  the  modest  farmhouse,  and  the  village  church, 
and  even  the  mansion  looking  out  of  its  woods,  if  it  be 
tasteful  in  form  and  colour.  But  the  big,  square  brick 
factory  and  the  tall  chimney  pouring  forth  a  black 
smoke  cloud  are  enough  to  destroy  the  charm  of  the 
sweetest  landscape.  In  many  another  spot  where  they 
can  be  set  up  they  will  do  no  harm,  but  these  exquisite 
shores  are  no  place  for  them.  So,  too,  preserve  the 
purity  of  your  streams  and  your  lakes,  not  merely  for 
the  sake  of  the  angler,  but  also  for  the  sake  of  those 
who  live  on  the  banks,  and  of  those  who  come  to  seek 
the  freshness  and  delight  of  an  unspoiled  nature  by 


278     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

the  river  sides.  Keep  open  the  long  grassy  ridges 
that  lead  up  to  the  rocky  summits  of  those  picturesque 
ranges  which  stretch  themselves  out  before  us.  Let  no 
man  debar  you  from  free  access  to  the  tops  of  your 
mountains  and  from  the  pleasure  of  wandering  along 
their  sides  and  enjoying  the  wide  prospects  they  afford. 
I  am  sorry  to  say  that  in  my  own  country  there  are 
persons  who,  in  the  interests  of  what  they  call  their 
sporting  rights,  have  endeavoured,  and  too  often  with 
success,  to  prevent  the  pedestrian,  and  the  artist,  and 
the  geologist,  and  the  botanist,  and  anyone  who  loves 
nature  and  seeks  her  in  her  remote  and  least  accessible 
recesses,  from  climbing  the  mountains  and  enjoying  the 
views  they  afford.  We,  who  on  our  side  of  the  Atlantic 
deplore  the  exclusion  of  the  people  from  the  hills  of 
Scotland,  warn  you  here  not  to  suffer  any  such  en- 
croachments to  be  made  on  the  natural  right  of  every 
people  to  enjoy  the  scenery  of  their  country.  Men 
may  for  the  sake  of  the  whole  community  be  debarred 
from  trespassing  on  land  dedicated  to  agriculture, 
but  the  bare  hillsides  and  moorlands  which  cannot  be 
used  for  tillage  ought  to  remain  free  and  open, 
available  for  the  pleasure  of  everyone  who  seeks 
health  and  recreation  there.  I  am  glad  to  hear  that 
you  have  in  Vermont  a  club  of  mountain  climbers  who 
are  making  foot  trails  along  the  glens  and  ridges,  and 
placing  shelters  below  the  highest  peaks  where  the 
climber  may  find  night  quarters  on  his  ascent  through 
uplands  far  from  any  house.  Such  a  club  will  doubt- 


DISCOVERY  OF  LAKE   CHAMPLAIN  279 

less  help  to  watch  over  public  rights.  See  to  it, 
therefore,  that  you  keep  open  for  the  enjoyment  of  all 
the  people,  for  the  humblest  of  the  people,  as  well  as 
for  those  who  can  hire  villas  and  sail  about  in  yachts  of 
their  own,  the  scenic  beauties  with  which  Providence 
has  blessed  you. 

Some  means  you  will  surely  find  by  which  this 
noble  lake,  the  most  various  in  its  beauty  of  all  the  many 
lakes  of  this  Appalachian  region,  can  be  preserved  for 
the  enjoyment  of  your  whole  American  people  with 
some  of  that  wild  simplicity  and  romantic  charm  which 
it  possessed  when  the  canoe  of  Champlain  the  Dis- 
coverer first  clove  its  silent  waters. 

It  was  then  a  deep  solitude  girt  in  by  primeval 
forest.  To-day  its  shores  are  studded  by  thriving 
towns  and  villages  and  "the  rich  works  of  men,"  as 
Homer  calls  them,  give  it  a  cheerful  air.  Beautiful  it 
always  was  and  is,  for  the  long  ridges  of  the  Green 
Mountains  look  across  to  the  bold  Adirondack  peaks, 
and  between  them  the  wide  expanse  smiles  under  the 
sun  in  myriad  wavelets. 

On  one  of  the  rocky  headlands  of  Mount  Desert 
Island  a  tablet  of  iron  let  into  a  mass  of  granite 
records  the  name  of  the  man  who  first  touched  its 
coast.  Here  no  monument  is  needed.  The  lake  itself 
and  its  engirdling  mountains  are  the  best  memorial 
to  the  heroic  explorer,  one  of  the  first  and  greatest  of 
those  who  won  for  France  the  glory  of  discovery,  and 
whose  own  fame  has  now  gone  out  over  all  the  western 
world,  Samuel  de  Champlain. 


SOME  HINTS   ON  PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

ADDRESS  TO  THE  STATE  UNIVERSITY  OF  IOWA,  APRIL,  1910. 


SOME  HINTS  ON  PUBLIC  SPEAKING 

ADDRESS  TO  THE  STATE  UNIVERSITY  OF  IOWA,  APRIL,  1910. 

EIGHTY  years  ago  Thomas  Carlyle  preached  the  gospel 
of  Silence  and  denounced  the  growing  tendency  to  talk 
in  public.  Since  then  the  habit  has  increased,  is  increas- 
ing, and  seems  most  unlikely  to  decrease.  It  may  be 
true  that  everything  worth  saying  has  been  said. 
Nevertheless,  orations  will  go  on  as  long  as  men  are 
willing  to  listen. 

You  whom  I  see  here  present  will  join — some  of  you 
have  already  joined  —  the  great  army  of  orators,  so  it  is 
natural  that  you  should  desire  to  have  a  few  hints 
given  you  on  the  subject,  even  if  they  claim  no  other 
authority  than  that  which  fifty  years  of  observation 
here  and  in  Europe  may  seem  to  confer.  They  shall 
be  put  in  the  form  of  a  few  short  maxims  of  a  severely 
practical  character.  Most,  perhaps  all,  of  these 
maxims  will  appear  obvious,  but  I  give  them  not  be- 
cause they  are  novel,  but  because  they  are  so  con- 
stantly neglected  as  to  be  worth  repeating. 

i.  Always  have  something  to  say.  The  man  who 
has  something  to  say  and  who  is  known  never  to  speak 
unless  he  has,  is  sure  to  be  listened  to,  especially  in  a 
deliberative  assembly  or  wherever  there  is  business  to 

283 


284      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

be  done,  while  the  man  of  mere  words  carries  no  sort  of 
weight.  Try  to  have  an  idea,  or  if  you  cannot  find 
one  —  ideas  are  none  too  common  —  have  two  or  three 
relevant  facts.  You  may  tell  me  that  sometimes  a  man 
is  forced  to  speak  when  there  is  nothing  to  be  said.  This 
does  not  often  happen,  because  if  you  think  a  little  be- 
fore you  rise,  you  will  almost  always  find  something  bear- 
ing on  the  matter  in  hand,  even  if  the  occasion  be  a 
purely  ornamental  one.  There  is  a  well-known  speech  of 
Cicero's  in  which  he  had  to  present  a  legal  case  on  behalf 
of  a  poet.  He  evidently  knew  that  the  legal  case  was 
weak,  so  he  passed  quickly  and  lightly  over  it,  but  made  a 
graceful  and  eloquent  discourse  upon  poetry  in  general. 
The  theme  was  not  very  novel  then,  and  is  still  less  novel 
now,  but  the  discourse  was  so  finished  in  its  language 
that  it  can  still  be  read  with  pleasure.  So  when  you 
have  to  propose  the  health  of  some  one  of  whose  personal 
merits  you  know  nothing,  you  may  say  something 
about  the  importance  of  his  office  if  he  is  a  state 
governor  or  a  mayor,  or  the  services  rendered  by  his 
profession  if  he  is  a  surgeon,  or  if  he  is  a  newspaper 
reporter,  Milton's  Areopagitica  with  its  stately  argument 
on  behalf  of  the  liberty  of  unlicensed  printing  may  sug- 
gest something  appropriate.  If  you  can  find  nothing 
at  all  to  say,  don't  say  it.  Your  silence  will  not  harm 
you  in  the  long  run. 

Lord  Brougham,  who  was  a  power  in  his  day,  though 
his  eloquence  does  not  suit  our  modern  taste,  advised 
young  speakers  to  begin  by  acquiring  fluency  as  the 


SOME  HINTS   ON  PUBLIC   SPEAKING  285 

one  indispensable  thing,  and  William  Pitt  the  younger 
is  said  to  have  acquired  his  marvellous  command  of 
words  by  having  been  trained  by  his  father  to  trans- 
late rapidly  at  sight  from  Latin  authors.  Nevertheless 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  fatal  fluency.  Whoever  follows 
Brougham's  advice  ought  to  beware  the  habit  of  think- 
ing more  of  the  words  than  of  the  sense. 

2.  Always  know  what  you  mean  to  say.     If  possible, 
consider  beforehand  what  you  are  going  to  say,  and 
make  your  own  mind  perfectly  clear  what  is  the  argu- 
ment which  you  want  to  put,  or  the  facts  you  want  to 
convey.    If  your  own  mind  is  muddled,  much  more  mud- 
dled will  your  hearers  be.     Bring  your  thoughts  to  a 
point,  reject  whatever  is  irrelevant,  and  be  content  if 
you  have  one  good  point  and  can  drive  it  home.     It  is 
pitiable  to  see  how  often  a  man  who  really  has  some 
knowledge  of  his  subject  goes  groping  or  stumbling 
about,  trying  to  get  somewhere,  but  not  getting  any- 
where, not  for  want  of  words,  but  because  he  cannot 
put  his  ideas  into  the  form  of  definite  propositions. 
In   trying   to   discover   what   it   is   that   you   mean, 
you  may  discover   that  you  mean  nothing.      If   so, 
the  sooner  you  know  it  the  better.     Sometimes  one 
hears  a  speech  in  the  course  of  which  the  speaker  gets 
his  own  mind  clear,  and  comes  at  last  to  know  what 
he  means,  but  when  it  is  too  late  to  get  hold  of  the 
audience.     If  he  had  thought  the  thing  out  beforehand, 
all  would  have  gone  well. 

3.  Always  arrange  your  remarks  hi  some  sort  of  order. 


286     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

No  matter  how  short  they  are  to  be,  they  will  be  the 
better  for  having  a  beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end. 
Nothing  pleases  an  audience  more  than  the  sense 
that  they  are  being  led  along  a  path  towards  a  definite 
goal  by  a  man  who  knows  his  way.  It  gives  them 
confidence  that  the  speaker  understands  what  he  is 
about  and  will  bring  them  out  all  right  somewhere. 
Do  not,  however,  let  your  arrangement  be  so  obtru- 
sively elaborate  as  to  alarm  them.  It  used  to  be  the 
fashion  of  Scottish  preachers  to  divide  their  subject  into 
three  or  four  "heads"  with  a  "firstly,"  a  "secondly," 
a  "thirdly,"  and  so  forth,  under  each  head,  so  that 
the  listener  knew  what  a  long  road  he  had  to  travel.  I 
remember  one  sermon  in  which  a  venerable  minister 
got  as  far  as  nineteen thly  under  the  second  head.  The 
process  of  classifying  facts  and  arguments  and  placing 
them  in  their  right  order  in  one's  own  mind  helps 
to  clarify  it,  while  it  adds  strength  to  the  argument. 
It  might  almost  be  said  that  a  well-arranged  speech  is 
seldom  a  bad  speech,  because  in  the  process  of  arrange- 
ment a  man  of  any  sense  is  sure  to  find  out  the 
deficiencies  in  his  facts  .  or  the  weak  points  in  his 
arguments  in  time  to  cure  them. 

4.  At  all  hazards,  Be  Clear.  Make  your  meaning, 
whatever  it  is,  plain  to  your  audience.  Though 
obscure  speech  is  usually  due  to  obscure  thought,  this  is 
not  always  so.  Some  persons  who  think  clearly  have  not 
learned  to  express  themselves  clearly,  because  they  are 
nervous  in  public,  or  have  an  insufficient  command  of 


SOME  HINTS  ON  PUBLIC  SPEAKING  287 

words.  In  such  cases  it  may  be  better  to  resort  to 
the  expedient,  otherwise  to  be  deprecated,  of  reading  a 
speech  from  manuscript  rather  than  confuse  the  audience. 
You  have,  moreover,  to  think  not  of  the  form  thoughts 
take  in  your  own  mind,  but  of  the  form  in  which  they 
will  be  comprehensible  by  your  audience.  Do  not  imi- 
tate the  bishop  who,  preaching  in  a  village  church, 
told  Hampshire  rustics  that  "Nature  herself  shall  be 
the  palimpsest  on  which  Omnipotence  shall  inscribe  the 
characters  of  a  rejuvenated  humanity."  Let  the  con- 
struction of  your  sentences  be  simple  enough  for  the 
hearers  to  follow,  and  the  words  such  as  they  cannot  fail 
to  understand.  To  find  themselves  puzzled  over  your 
meaning,  and  while  they  are  still  puzzling  over  your 
last  sentence,  to  be  unable  to  attend  to  the  next  one, 
annoys  your  hearers  and  lessens  the  chance  of  pleasing 
or  persuading  them.  Though  obscurity  of  expression 
is  mostly  due  to  obscurity  of  thought,  it  sometimes 
happens  that  people  whose  thought  is  clear  enough 
insist  on  wrapping  it  up  in  vague  and  cloudy  rhetoric. 
To  the  rule  that  lucidity  is  the  first  of  merits,  there 
is  one  exception,  viz.,  where  a  speaker  feels  himself 
driven  to  the  shelter  of  obscurity.  I  have  seen  astute 
debaters,  compelled  by  their  position  to  speak,  unwill- 
ing to  be  untruthful,  yet  forbidden  by  considerations 
of  prudence  to  speak  out  frankly  all  they  thought,  de- 
liberately involve  themselves  in  a  web  of  words  where 
each  sentence  seemed  to  have  a  meaning,  but  the  hearers 
were  left  to  wonder  what  the  whole  speech  meant. 


288     UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

But  such  contingencies  are  rare ;  you  may  go  through 
life  without  getting  caught  in  one. 

5.  In  controversial   speaking,   as,   for   example,   in 
conducting  a  lawsuit  or  arguing  a  proposal  in  a  delibera- 
tive body,  think  always  of  what  your  opponent  will 
say,  and  so  frame  your  speech  as  to  anticipate  his 
answers   and   give   little    opening   for    his    criticism. 
The   grounds   of   this  rule   are   too  obvious  to  need 
illustration.    Add  to  it  the  old  maxim  that  in  replying 
you  ought  to  meet  and  counter  your  adversary's  jest 
by  earnest,  and  his  earnest  by  jest.     Aristotle  said  it, 
but  mother  wit  has  taught  it  to  many  a  man  who 
never  heard  of  Aristotle. 

6.  Always   reflect    beforehand    upon    the    kind    of 
audience   you   are   likely   to    have,   for   even   in   the 
same  country  or  in  the  same  section  of  the  country 
audiences    are    by  no    means    the    same,    and    what 
suits   one    may    not    suit    another.     I    have    known 
practised  speakers  throw  overboard  the  speech  they 
had    intended    to    deliver   and   substitute    something 
different  when  they  looked  from  the  platform  over  the 
faces  beneath.     If  your  hearers  are  mostly  educated 
men  and  women,  you  may  assume  much  as  already 
known  which  it  would  be  proper  to  explain  to  persons 
of  scantier  knowledge.     But  it  is  safer  to  proceed  on 
the  assumption  of  ignorance  (so  long  as  you  do  not  let 
the  audience  think  you  are  talking  down  to  them)  than 
to  assume  knowledge.     We  are  all  of  us  more  ignorant 
than  other  people  know,  or  indeed  than  we  know  our- 


SOME  HINTS  ON  PUBLIC  SPEAKING  289 

selves.  If  the  audience  are  disposed  to  be  hostile, 
you  will  begin  by  putting  them  in  good  humour 
and  trying  to  excite  their  curiosity  as  to  the  line  you 
will  take.  If  they  are  already  wearied  by  the  ha- 
rangues of  your  predecessors,  you  will  go  at  them  with 
quick,  sharp,  bright,  bold  sentences,  and  will  let  them 
feel  that  you  do  not  mean  to  detain  them  long.  And 
you  will  watch  them  as  you  go  along  just  as  you  would 
watch  your  fly  on  the  surface  of  the  water  you  are 
fishing. 

7.  Never  despise  those  whom  you  address,  whatever 
you  may  think  of  their  intellectual  attainments.     Give 
them  the  best  you  have  to  give.    You  need  not  talk 
over  their  heads,  as  I  once  heard  an  eminent  English 
historian,  when  he  was  candidate  for  a  seat  hi  Parlia- 
ment, discourse   to   agricultural   labourers   upon   the 
Landesgemeinde  of  the  Forest  Cantons  of  Switzerland. 
But  you  will  find  it  politic  as  well  as  polite  to  respect 
them,  and  you  must  never  think  that  your  best  thoughts, 
expressed  in  the  fittest  words,  are  too  good  for  them. 
Though  noisy  and  empty  rhetoric  will  often  draw  cheers, 
still  the  masses  of  the  common  people  almost  always 
appreciate  solid  and  relevant  facts,  sound  and  useful 
thoughts,   stated  in   language   they   can   understand, 
and  there  will  probably  be  among  them  those  who 
would  perceive  and  resent  any  indication  that  you 
were  talking  down  to  their  inferior  capacity. 

8.  Be    sparing    of    literary    ornament,    except    in 
speeches  that  are  of  a  frankly  decorative  kind,  such 


290     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

as  those  made  after  dinner,  or  panegyrics  of  some  notable 
person  whom  it  is  wished  to  honour.  Just  as  an  ornament 
should  seem  when  used  in  architecture,  to  be  an  orig- 
inal and  essential  part  of  the  whole  design,  so  in  oratory 
the  decorative  parts  should  be  connected  with,  and 
naturally  grow  out  of,  the  substance  of  the  matter  in 
hand,  and  should  help  to  make  the  speech  more  vivid 
and  telling,  rather  than  seem  stuck  on  in  order  to  please 
the  ear  without  strengthening  the  sense.  Abraham 
Lincoln  rendered  a  great  service  to  American  eloquence 
when  he  renounced  the  florid  or  tawdry  style  that 
prevailed  in  his  day,  and  set  an  example  of  speaking 
that  was  plain,  direct,  and  terse.  Be  sparing  with 
superlatives;  reserve  them  for  occasions  where  they 
will  really  tell.  Take  pains  to  choose  the  strong  and 
simple  words,  and  the  words  that  exactly  fit  the  case. 
Even  an  audience  that  is  not  itself  very  cultivated 
feels  the  charm  of  choice  and  pointed  diction,  and  of 
words  that  have  some  touch  of  colour  in  them,  such  as 
apt  metaphors.  A  well  chosen  metaphor  often  clinches 
an  argument,  or  becomes  an  illustration  of  it  in 
miniature. 

9.  As  respects  humorous  anecdotes,  and  jokes  in 
general,  these  are  eminently  matters  of  individual 
taste,  in  which  each  man  will  please  himself,  and  few 
general  counsels  can  be  given.  Though  we  all  envy  the 
speaker  who  has  plenty  of  merry  jests,  he  needs  to  be- 
ware of  abusing  his  gift.  There  is  a  tendency  to-day  to 
make  after-dinner  speaking  a  mere  string  of  anecdotes, 


SOME  HINTS  ON  PUBLIC   SPEAKING  291 

most  of  which  may  have  little  to  do  with  the  subject 
or  with  one  another.  Even  the  best  stories  lose  their 
charm  when  they  are  dragged  in  by  the  head  and 
shoulders,  having  no  connection  with  the  allotted  theme. 
Relevance  as  well  as  brevity  is  the  soul  of  wit,  for  a 
good  speech  is  a  work  of  art,  in  which  every  part 
should  have  an  organic  relation  to  every  other  part. 
And  when  you  tell  a  story,  take  some  pains  with  the 
form  of  it.  The  late  Mr.  James  Russell  Lowell,  whom 
we  in  England  admired  as  the  best  after-dinner  speaker 
of  his  day,  was  a  master  in  that  line.  The  classical 
felicity  of  his  diction  set  off  and  gave  a  charm  to  the 
smallest  anecdote  he  told. 

10.  Never,  if  you  can  help  it,  be  dull.  It  is  a  fault  to 
have  too  many  flowers  or  too  many  fireworks,  but  it  is  a 
worse  fault  to  be  tedious.  An  eminent  Oxford  teacher 
of  my  undergraduate  days,  who  is  now  a  learned  and 
distinguished  English  writer,  coined  for  his  pupils  a 
phrase  which  had  a  great  vogue  in  the  university:  "It 
is  better  to  be  flippant  than  to  be  dull."  This  audacious 
advice,  meant  for  young  writers,  is  even  more  applica- 
ble to  young  speakers,  because,  bad  as  dulness  is  in 
print,  it  is  still  worse  when  you  cannot  escape  from 
it  without  quitting  the  dinner  table.  Many  are  the 
causes  of  dreariness  in  a  speech.  One  is  lack  of  good 
matter,  for  it  often  happens  that  the  less  a  man  has 
to  say,  the  more  he  spins  it  out.  A  still  commoner 
one  is  confused  thinking,  which  makes  the  speaker 
lose  himself  in  vague  and  pointless  phrases.  Another 


292     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

is  monotony  in  language,  the  frequent  repetition  of 
the  same  words,  because  the  speaker's  vocabulary  is 
scanty  and  he  can  command  no  others.  You  may 
ask  how  dulness  can  be  avoided  when  the  subject  is 
not  a  lively  one.  Well,  some  subjects  are  dry.  The 
treasurer  of  a  city,  or  even  of  a  baseball  club,  who  is 
presenting  his  accounts,  cannot  make  them  fascinating. 
But  dryness  is  not  the  same  thing  as  dulness.  The  least 
promising  subject  may  be  treated  with  a  conciseness  and 
precision  and  lucidity  which  allow  one  the  pleasure  that 
good  workmanship  gives.  A  speech  with  those  merits 
will  not  be  dull.  Though  it  may  be  dry,  it  will  stand 
out  sharp  and  clear,  like  a  bare  mountain  peak  in  the 
desert  of  Arizona,  and  even  to  the  driest  topics  you 
can  impart  a  little  variety  by  a  lively  simile  or  an 
apt  illustration.  Dulness  is  often  the  result  merely  of 
monotony  in  voice  and  manner :  and  this  brings  me  to 
another  maxim. 

ii.  Remember  the  importance  of  Delivery.  De- 
mosthenes, greatest  of  all  orators,  is  reported  to  have 
said  when  asked  what  was  the  chief  quality  in  oratory, 
Delivery;  and  when  asked  what  was  the  second  and 
again  what  was  the  third,  to  have  made  the  same  reply. 
It  is  related  that  his  own  elocution  and  manner  were  at 
first  poor,  and  were  improved  by  incessant  study 
and  practice.  And  though  a  rich  or  sweet  or  sonorous 
and  resonant  voice  is  a  gift  of  nature,  care  and  training 
can  do  much  to  get  good  results  out  of  a  mediocre  organ. 
Articulation,  modulation,  and  expression  may  all  be 


SOME  HINTS  ON  PUBLIC  SPEAKING  293 

cultivated.  To  listen  to  words  clearly  and  finely  spoken, 
and  to  sentences  in  which  the  voice  adapts  itself  to 
the  subject,  adds  greatly  to  whatever  pleasure  a  speech 
can  give.  However,  the  four  suggestions  I  make  to  you 
are  applicable  to  all,  be  their  voices  good  or  bad.  First, 
Be  sure  you  are  heard.  Better  be  silent  than  be  in- 
audible. Secondly,  Do  not  shout.  It  is  not  necessary. 
Take  the  measure  of  the  room,  look  at  the  man  in  the 
last  row,  throw  your  voice  out  so  as  to  reach  him, 
watching  his  face  to  see  if  the  words  get  there,  and  trust 
not  so  much  to  loudness  as  to  clearness  of  enunciation 
and  a  measured  delivery.  Thirdly,  Beware  of  exhaust- 
ing your  voice.  Do  not  strain  it,  however  large  the 
room,  to  its  utmost  power,  at  least  until  near  the  end 
of  your  speech.  Fourthly,  Vary  now  and  then  the  key 
or  pitch  of  your  voice.  It  relieves  the  listener,  and 
to  suddenly  raise  or  lower  the  voice  when  there  is  any 
change  in  the  topic  often  helps  the  sense  of  the  words. 
A  speech  seems  twice  as  long  when  it  is  delivered  in  a 
monotone,  and  most  speeches  are  too  long  already. 

Were  I  addressing  an  English  audience  I  should  add  a 
fifth  suggestion.  Speak  slowly.  But  the  fault  of  going 
too  fast  is  far  less  common  here  than  in  Britain;  in- 
deed, some  of  your  speakers  tend  to  the  opposite  error 
of  going  too  slow.  Dr.  Phillips  Brooks  is  the  only 
great  American  to  whom  I  have  ever  listened  who 
spoke  very  rapidly.  It  may  interest  you  to  know  that 
John  Bright,  who  was  on  the  whole  the  greatest  English 
orator  of  the  last  half  century,  told  me  that  when  he 


294     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

first  began  to  speak  in  public  his  utterance  was  so  rapid 
that  on  one  occasion  a  newspaper  reported  an  address 
he  had  made  at  a  political  meeting  in  the  following 
words:  "The  next  speech  was  made  by  our  young 
townsman,  Mr.  John  Bright,  but  he  spoke  so  fast  that 
our  reporter  was  quite  unable  to  follow  him."  When 
and  after  Bright  had  reached  his  prime,  the  measured 
deliberation  with  which  he  delivered  his  sentences  made 
them  tell  like  the  blows  of  a  hammer. 

12.  Never  read  from  manuscript  if  you  can  help 
it,  unless  when  the  occasion  is  one  of  such  exceptional 
solemnity  or  dignity  that  a  long  and  highly  finished 
piece  of  composition  is  expected.     As  for  notes,  the 
fewer  the  better,  but  if  you  find  that  you  cannot  trust 
your  memory  to  supply  the  order  of  the  topics  and  the 
particular  points  you  wish  to  make,  or  illustrations  you 
wish  to  intersperse,  it  is  better  to  refer  to  your  notes 
for  these  than  to  miss  the  points  altogether.     There 
are  speakers  whose  habit  it  is  to  carry  notes  in  their 
pocket  even  when  they  hope  not  to  use  them.     It  gives 
confidence,  and  saves  them  from  such  a  fiasco  as  I  have 
seen  befall  even  practised  debaters  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, when,  having  suddenly  lost  the  thread  of  their 
discourse,  they  were  obliged  to  sink  sadly  to  their  seats, 
amid  the  crushing  commiseration  of  their  opponents. 

13.  Whether  you  use  notes  or  not,  always  have  ready 
two  or  three  sentences  with  which  to  sit  down.    You 
need  not  be  either  flowery  or  sublime  in  your  closing 
words,  but  some  sort  of  a  peroration  you  ought  to  have 


SOME  HINTS  ON  PUBLIC  SPEAKING  295 

at  command,  so  as  not  to  bungle  and  hesitate  when 
the  time  for  ending  comes.  How  often  do  we  see  an 
unhappy  fellow-creature  go  maundering  or  floundering 
helplessly  along,  amid  the  growing  contempt  of  the 
audience,  having  already  said  all  he  had  got  to  say, 
and  yet  unable  to  stop  because  he  feels  that  a  closing 
sentence  is  needed  and  he  cannot  find  one. 

14.  Lastly  —  and  this  is  a  maxim  which  is  of  universal 
application,  Never  weary  your  audience.  If  they  are 
tired  before  you  rise  to  speak,  cut  your  speech  short, 
unless  you  feel  able  to  freshen  them  up  and  dispel  their 
weariness.  Just  as  physicians  say  that  a  man  ought  to 
leave  off  eating  while  he  is  still  hungry  enough  to  go 
on  eating,  so  let  your  hearers  wish  for  more  food  from 
you,  rather  than  feel  they  have  had  too  much  already. 
Consider  the  hour  of  the  evening  and  human  weakness. 
One  of  the  most  successful  speeches  I  remember  to  have 
heard  of  was  made  by  a  famous  engineer  at  a  great 
public  dinner  of  the  British  Association  for  the  Ad- 
vancement of  Science.  He  came  last;  and  midnight 
had  arrived.  His  toast  was  Applied  Science,  and  his 
speech  was  as  follows:  "Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  at  this 
late  hour  I  advise  you  to  illustrate  the  Applications 
of  Science  by  applying  a  lucifer  match  to  the  wick  of 
your  bedroom  candle.  Let  us  all  go  to  bed." 

It  might  be  rash  to  say  that  a  short  speech  is  never  a 
bad  speech,  for  I  have  known  a  man  grieve  his  friends 
and  rum  his  case  in  five  minutes.  But  for  ten  speeches 
that  are  too  short  there  are  a  hundred  that  are  too  long. 


296     UNIVERSITY  AND    HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

A  lecture  ought  not  to  exceed  fifty  minutes,  a  sermon 
twenty-five  minutes,  an  after-dinner  speech  (unless  of 
course  it  is  meant  to  be  the  chief  address  of  the  even- 
ing) fifteen  minutes.  For  speeches  in  law-courts  or 
legislatures,  where  a  mass  of  facts  may  have  to  be  ex- 
pounded and  commented  on,  limits  cannot  be  fixed, 
but  all  speeches,  everywhere,  gain  by  compression. 
Mr.  Bright,  like  Chatham  and  most  of  our  great 
orators,  seldom  spoke  for  more  than  an  hour.  Mr. 
Gladstone,  like  Edmund  Burke,  did  not  so  restrict  him- 
self, and  both  these  illustrious  men  suffered  from  their 
copiousness  so  far  as  the  audience  of  the  moment  was 
concerned,  though  no  one  could  wish  Burke's  magnifi- 
cent orations,  as  we  now  have  them  in  print,  to  be 
shorter  by  a  sentence.  Like  Daniel  Webster's,  they 
are  good  all  through. 

The  maxim  not  to  tire  or  bore  your  audience  is 
part  of  a  wider  precept;  viz.,  to  remember  the  main 
purpose  of  a  speech.  Most  speakers  are  beset,  espe- 
cially in  their  earlier  days,  by  a  temptation  from  which 
even  those  of  longer  experience  are  not  exempt,  the 
temptation  to  regard  a  speech  as  the  opportunity  for 
displaying  talent  rather  than  as  a  means  to  an  end. 

The  aims  or  ends  of  speaking  are  commonly  classed 
as  two.  One  is  to  Persuade.  The  other  is  to  Delight. 
In  order  to  persuade  a  court  or  a  jury  you  must  think 
not  of  showing  off  your  theoretical  gifts,  but  of  getting 
the  judgment  or  the  verdict.  The  best  speech  is  the 
speech  that  convinces  court  or  jury.  In  a  legislative 


SOME   HINTS  ON  PUBLIC  SPEAKING  297 

body,  the  best  speech  is  that  which  draws  votes,  or, 
if  that  be  impossible,  which  puts  heart  into  your  own 
party.  When  the  speech  is  meant  not  to  persuade, 
but  to  give  delight,  there  are  three  quarters  in  which 
pleasure  may  be  felt;  the  person  in  whose  honour  the 
speech  is  made,  the  audience,  and  yourself.  It  is  a 
common  error  to  think  too  much  of  the  last  and  too 
little  of  the  second.  So  long  as  you  are  mindful  to  say 
nothing  unworthy  of  yourself,  nothing  untrue,  nothing 
vulgar,  you  had  better  forget  yourself  altogether  and 
think  only  of  the  audience,  how  to  get  them  and  how  to 
hold  them.  Keep  your  mind  fixed  upon  your  hearers 
and  upon  the  end  in  view,  whether  it  be  to  please 
or  to  convince.  Appreciation  will  come  if  it  is  deserved, 
and  will  come  all  the  more  if  you  do  not  too  obviously 
play  for  it. 

You  will  sometimes  make  failures,  for  nobody  is 
always  at  his  best.  Do  not  be  discouraged.  The 
fault  may  not  be  your  own,  for  much  depends  on  con- 
ditions you  cannot  command.  But  when  you  feel  you 
have  fallen  below  the  best  that  you  can  do,  ask  your- 
self why,  and  if  the  fault  is  in  yourself,  try  to  correct 
it  next  time. 


SPECIAL   AND    GENERAL   EDUCATION   IN 
UNIVERSITIES 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  ON  COMMEMORATION  DAY  AT  JOHNS  HOPKINS 
UNIVERSITY,  BALTIMORE,  FEBRUARY  220,  1911. 


ADDRESS  DELIVERED  ON  COMMEMORATION  DAY  AT  JOHNS  HOPKINS 
UNIVERSITY,  BALTIMORE,  FEBRUARY  220,  1911. 

YOUR  University  looks  back  to-day  upon  thirty-five 
years  of  educational  work  which  has  been  of  permanent 
significance  for  all  the  seats  of  learning  and  study  in 
the  English-speaking  countries  of  the  world.  The 
conception  of  creating  a  University  which  should 
provide  in  various  branches  of  knowledge  advanced 
courses  to  be  taken  by  men  who  had  completed 
their  general  liberal  education,  was  then  a  compara- 
tively novel  one  in  those  countries ;  and  it  requires 
an  effort  to  carry  oneself  back  to  a  time  when  the 
now  elaborate  machinery  of  post-graduate  courses, 
which  has  been  spreading  itself  through  the  leading 
universities  in  the  United  States,  did  not  exist.  To  the 
Johns  Hopkins  University  belongs  the  honour  of  having 
first  put  into  practice  this  fertile  conception,  and  of 
having  carried  it  out  with  a  thoroughness  to  which  its 
diffusion  and  its  success  are  very  largely  due.  The 
name  of  your  late  admirable  President  will  always  be 
associated  in  the  educational  history  of  North  America 
with  this  epoch-making  "  new  departure,"  and  the 

301 


302      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

University  has  always  since  lived  up  to  the  standard 
of  thoroughness,  and  preference  of  real  work  to  dis- 
play, from  which  it  started.  Its  adherence  to  that 
standard,  its  continued  embodiment  of  the  ideal  of 
scientific  perfection,  have  given  it  the  position  of  in- 
fluence and  dignity  which  it  now  occupies  in  the 
world. 

A  remarkable  feature  of  the  thirty-five  years  over 
which  you  look  back  is  the  wonderful  development  of 
many  departments  of  human  knowledge,  and  espe- 
cially of  those  which  are  concerned  with  the  sciences 
of  nature,  into  special  branches,  each  of  which  has  been 
tending  to  become  more  distinct  from  the  others.  So 
far  from  finding  ourselves  approaching  the  end  of 
knowledge,  we  find  that  the  more  we  know  the  more 
remains  beyond  to  be  known,  and  that  the  realm  of 
the  unknown  seems  to  be  steadily  increasing  with 
every  addition  to  our  knowledge.  It  is  as  though  the 
particular  path  which  we  are  following  was  always  di- 
verging into  a  number  of  different  paths  which  tend  to 
separate  from  one  another,  and  each  of  which  leads  into 
untrodden  solitudes  to  which  we  see  no  end.  Within 
the  recollection  of  most  of  us,  new  branches  of  science 
have  made  good  their  place,  and  have  become  recog- 
nized as  separate  fields  of  enquiry,  and  along  with 
this  it  has  befallen  that  the  great  majority  of  scientific 
enquirers  now  begin,  as  soon  as  their  general  scientific 
education  has  been  completed,  to  devote  themselves 
to  one  particular  branch  of  investigation  and  throw 


SPECIALISM   IN  UNIVERSITY  EDUCATION        303 

their  whole  energy  into  pushing  it  forward.  A  man 
is  now  not  a  "natural  philosopher"  in  the  old  sense 
of  the  term,  but  belongs  to  some  one  of  the  specific 
branches  into  which  natural  philosophy  has  become 
divided.  The  mass  of  papers  and  articles  upon  all 
the  branches  of  science  that  fills  the  weekly  and 
monthly  and  quarterly  and  yearly  magazines  and 
reports  of  proceedings  of  learned  bodies  in  all  civil- 
ized countries,  is  now  so  vast  that  the  most  powerful 
intellect  cannot  follow  and  keep  pace  with  what  is 
being  accomplished  even  in  its  own  special  branch. 
Indices  and  books  designed  to  be  guides  to  the  ever 
accumulating  pile  increase  in  number,  but  do  not 
meet  our  needs.  In  chemistry,  for  instance,  there  is 
published  every  year  a  body  of  facts  greater  than  all  that 
stood  recorded  in  the  days  of  Black  and  Priestley. 
The  same  thing  has  happened  in  those  practical  arts 
which  depend  upon  the  application  of  science.  They, 
too,  have  multiplied  by  division,  and  thus  new  prac- 
tical professions,  each  employing  many  thousands  of 
persons,  such  as  photography  and  electrical  engineer- 
ing, have  grown  up,  which  were  unknown  seventy 
years  ago. 

The  same  thing  has,  of  necessity,  happened  in  uni- 
versity education.  We  have  now  in  all  duly  organized 
universities  professors  of  a  large  number  of  distinct 
branches  of  knowledge  which  were  formerly  lumped 
together  as  being  one  branch  under  one  professor. 
When  I  was  a  student  in  the  University  of  Glasgow, 


304      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

and  also  in  that  of  Oxford,  I  remember  that  there 
was  in  each  but  one  professor  of  physics. 

So  also  among  students  the  tendency  is  for  those  who 
have  advanced  some  way  to  begin  to  concentrate  their 
efforts  upon  one  particular  line  of  study  and  investi- 
gation. Both  the  teacher  and  the  student  are  naturally 
fascinated  by  the  prospect  of  discovery.  The  professor 
likes  best  to  lecture  upon  the  subject  in  which  he  is 
pushing  forward  his  own  investigations,  and  the  stu- 
dent is  able  to  find  in  them  the  most  attractive  field 
of  experimental  research. 

This  sort  of  specialization  has  become  inevitable, 
but  there  is  a  consequence  attached  to  it  which  ap- 
pears almost  equally  inevitable,  yet  in  some  aspects 
regrettable.  Part  of  the  time  which  was  previously 
given  to  general  study,  i.e.  to  a  knowledge  both  of  nat- 
ural science  in  general  and  of  other  non-scientific  sub- 
jects, must  needs  be  now  devoted  to  this  special  study. 

The  field  of  nature  is  unlimited.  Human  curiosity 
is  unlimited.  But  human  life  and  the  capacity  for 
using  our  time  and  our  powers  in  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge  remain  within  very  narrow  bounds.  It 
would  be  rash  to  set  limits  to  what  scientific  research, 
such  as  that  which  members  of  the  brilliant  medical 
faculty  of  this  University  carry  on,  may  effect  in 
the  way  both  of  extending  human  life  and  of  mak- 
ing health  more  vigorous  and  thus  improving  the 
working  powers  of  the  mind.  Still,  life  is  short,  ter- 
ribly short  for  all  that  we  want  to  learn  and  do,  and 


SPECIALISM  IN  UNIVERSITY  EDUCATION       305 

there  is  no  present  prospect  that  it  will  be  much  pro- 
longed. Has  it  not  sometimes  occurred  to  you  what 
a  pity  it  is  that  the  immense  length  of  working  years 
which  mankind  is  said  to  have  enjoyed  in  the  days 
before  the  Flood,  when  scientific  investigations,  so  far 
as  we  know,  were  slender,  and  directed  to  purely  prac- 
tical ends,  could  not  have  been  reserved  for  times  like 
our  own,  in  which  a  long  life  is  more  needed  for  utiliz- 
ing the  accumulated  knowledge  and  skill  a  great 
scholar  and  student  can  bring  to  bear  upon  the  ma- 
terials that  now  lie  before  us  ?  What  might  not  Dar- 
win or  Helmholtz  or  Kelvin  or  Mommsen  or  Ranke  or 
the  distinguished  historian  whom  America  has  lately 
lost,  Mr.  Henry  C.  Lea,  have  accomplished  with  a 
working  life  extended  in  some  proportion  to  the  vaster 
fields  of  enquiry  that  attract  us  to-day  ? 

The  problem  which  now  confronts  us  in  all  univer- 
sities is  how  to  find  time  both  for  these  specialized 
studies,  which  are  daily  becoming  more  absorbing,  and 
also  for  the  obtaining  that  kind  of  survey  and  com- 
prehension of  the  general  field  of  human  knowledge 
which  is  necessary  hi  order  to  make  the  university 
graduate  a  truly  educated  and  cultivated  man,  capable 
of  seeing  the  relation  of  his  own  particular  study  to 
others  and  of  appreciating  the  various  methods  by 
which  discovery  is  prosecuted.  This  problem  of  recon- 
ciling special  with  general  study,  although  most  urgent 
hi  the  sciences  of  nature,  shows  itself  in  what  may  be 
called  the  human  subjects  also.  In  history,  for  instance, 


306     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

one  now  finds  people  who  devote  themselves  entirely 
to  one  period  of  history,  and  will  complacently  tell 
you,  when  a  question  belonging  to  some  other  time  is 
raised,  that  they  know  nothing  about  it  because  it  is 
"not  hi  their  period."  So  there  are  people  who  give 
themselves  up  so  entirely  to  the  study  of  economic 
history  that  they  may  know  very  little  of  civil  or 
ecclesiastical  history  in  general. 

However,  it  is  chiefly  in  the  sciences  of  nature  that 
the  difficulty  I  am  referring  to  arises.  These  are  now 
tending  to  overshadow  all  other  studies,  partly  be- 
cause the  numerous  practical  applications  to  which 
they  are  turned  have  acquired  immense  industrial 
importance  for  men  and  nations,  and  partly  also 
because  we  are  all  fascinated  by  the  progress  of  dis- 
covery, and  are  so  eager  to  attain  certitude  that  we 
are  disposed  to  turn  from  those  enquiries  in  which 
complete  certitude  is  unattainable  to  those  in  which 
the  laws  of  nature  provide  an  absolutely  firm  basis. 
And  it  is  in  the  natural  sciences  that  the  subdivision 
and  specialization  referred  to  have  gone  farthest. 

The  problem  has  accordingly  two  aspects.  It 
raises  the  question  of  a  mastery  of  the  principles 
of  the  sciences  of  nature  hi  general  as  against  a 
highly  specialized  study  of  some  one  department  in 
those  sciences.  It  also  raises  the  question  of  the  re- 
spective claims  of  the  study  of  physical  science,  or 
some  branch  of  it,  as  against  the  claims  of  what  may 
be  called  the  human  sciences,  or,  if  you  prefer  it,  hu- 


SPECIALISM  IN  UNIVERSITY  EDUCATION        307 

manistic  subjects.    It  is  upon  this  latter  aspect  that 
I  have  a  few  observations  to  submit. 

What  do  we  mean  by  general  intellectual  cultivation 
as  opposed  to  special  knowledge  ?  Without  attempt- 
ing a  complete  definition  —  nothing  is  more  dangerous 
than  a  definition  —  I  will  suggest  a  description.  We 
mean  such  a  knowledge  of  the  main  facts  and  distinc- 
tive methods  of  various  branches  of  human  knowledge 
as  furnishes  a  general  idea  of  the  relations  of  each 
branch  to  other  branches;  that  is  to  say,  a  comprehen- 
sion of  what  truth  and  certitude  mean  in  different  de- 
partments of  study,  and  of  what  are  the  various  paths 
by  which  truth  may  be  reached  or  approached.  Were 
I  asked  to  indicate  what  this  would  include,  I  should 
make  some  such  answer  as  this :  In  the  sphere  of 
natural  science,  it  would  include  a  knowledge  not 
necessarily  wide,  but  sound  and  exact  so  far  as  it  went, 
of  a  deductive  science  such  as  geometry,  and  of  some 
science  of  observation  such  as  a  branch  of  natural  his- 
tory, geology,  for  instance,  or  some  department  of 
biology,  or  of  such  an  experimental  science  as  chemis- 
try. On  the  human  side,  it  would  include  a  knowl- 
edge of  one  at  least  among  what  may  be  called  the 
more  abstract  subjects,  such  as  psychology  (in  the 
older  sense)  or  logic  or  ethics,  and  of  one  of  the  more 
observational  subjects  such  as  economics  or  politics. 
It  would  include  a  knowledge  of  the  principles  of 
language,  and  of  at  least  one  foreign  tongue,  ancient 
or  modern,  preferably  an  inflected  tongue  possess- 


308      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

ing  a  literature.  And,  finally,  it  must  include  the 
record  of  human  effort  and  development  through 
the  ages,  that  is  to  say,  history,  which  shows  us  how 
man  has  grown  from  what  he  was  in  the  past  to  be 
what  he  is  in  the  present,  and  holds  out  hopes  of  what 
he  may  be  hi  the  future.  Without  at  least  an  elemen- 
tary knowledge  of  these  matters,  no  man  is  properly 
equipped  for  a  life  of  study  and  thought,  or  for  those 
branches  of  the  practical  work  of  life  which  require  a 
wide  intellectual  outlook.  It  is  not  necessary  to-day, 
as  it  would  have  been  fifty  years  ago,  to  argue  that 
every  educated  man  should  have  some  knowledge  of 
deductive  science  and  of  the  observational  and  experi- 
mental sciences  of  nature.  But  it  is  beginning  to  be 
necessary  to  vindicate  for  the  other  great  department 
of  enquiry,  that  which  relates  to  Man,  its  rightful 
place  in  a  general  scheme  of  education. 

Specialization  is  not  only  inevitable  for  the  progress 
of  discovery,  but  in  many  minor  ways  excellent.  It  is 
a  splendid  thing  for  a  great  university  like  this  to  have 
among  its  professors  men  each  of  whom  is  abreast  of 
the  highest  development  of  some  particular  line  of  en- 
quiry and  knows  how  that  line  of  enquiry  ought  to  be 
prosecuted,  so  that  it  holds  within  its  own  walls,  so  to 
speak,  an  accumulated  mass  of  various  knowledge,  rep- 
resenting that  to  which  the  world  has  yet  attained.  The 
scientific  specialist  makes  interesting  company  —  when 
I  have  a  chance  I  always  try  to  get  beside  him  at 
dinner  —  because  he  is  able  to  tell  us  what  we  seek  to 


SPECIALISM  IN  UNIVERSITY  EDUCATION       309 

know  of  the  progress  of  discovery  in  the  growing 
sciences,  and  we  have  only  to  interrogate  him  to  get 
at  once,  without  the  labour  of  consulting  books,  the  lat- 
est results  in  the  clearest  form.  The  scientific  investi- 
gator, moreover,  seems  to  have  on  the  whole  the  happi- 
est kind  of  life  that  is  now  possible.  Does  he  know 
how  happy  he  is  ?  Engaged  in  the  discovery  of  truth,  he 
has  for  his  helpers  all  others  engaged  in  the  same  pur- 
suit, and  feels  that  all  his  labours  are  working  to- 
wards a  noble  and  useful  end.  He  is  free  from  the 
vexations  that  beset  the  business  man  or  the  lawyer 
or  the  politician.  He  depends  on  no  man's  favour. 
He  is  not  expected  to  say  anything  of  whose  truth  he 
entertains  secret  doubts.  If  he  has  not  a  happy  life, 
granted  good  health,  it  is  probably  his  own  fault,  for 
what  more  can  one  desire  than  to  be,  as  Bacon  says, 
the  interpreter  as  well  as  the  servant  of  Nature  ? 

Admitting  all  this,  and  much  more  that  might  be 
said  about  the  interest  and  pleasure  of  enquiry  con- 
centrated on  one  department,  it  is  nevertheless  right 
to  present  to  you  some  dangers  that  seem  to  arise 
from  the  immense  extension  of  the  specializing  ten- 
dency and  from  the  predominance,  in  particular,  of  the 
study  of  the  natural  sciences  to  the  exclusion  of  other 
topics.  We  are  accustomed  to  divide  the  subjects  of 
enquiry  into  two  great  departments ;  those,  the  human 
subjects,  in  which  we  deal  with  probable  matter,  and 
that  field  of  Nature  in  which  all  is  fixed,  certain,  posi- 
tive, immutable.  Some  one  may,  to  be  sure,  remark 


310    UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

that  the  phenomena  of  nature  may  possibly  be  under- 
going some  slow  process  of  change.  We  cannot  be 
sure  that  oxygen  and  hydrogen  may  not  be  different 
now  from  what  they  once  were,  or  that  alterations 
may  not  conceivably  occur  in  the  proportion  of  the 
constituents  present  in  compound  chemical  bodies. 
However  that  is  all  speculation.  For  our  present  pur- 
poses, we  think  of  the  sciences  of  nature  as  being  occu- 
pied with  that  which  is  permanent  and  unchangeable. 
They  deal  with  those  laws  which  we  believe,  so  far  as 
our  knowledge  goes,  to  be  immutable,  to  have  been 
operative  in  the  past  and  likely  to  be  operative  in  the 
future,  even  as  they  are  operative  now.  Now  he  whose 
whole  time  and  thoughts  are  given  to  the  study  of 
these  unchanging  laws  does  not  learn  thereby  how  to 
deal  with  that  which  is  mutable  and  transient.  But 
the  mutable  and  the  transient  include  not  only  most 
of  what  concerns  our  daily  life,  but  the  whole  immense 
field  of  knowledge  which  covers  the  human  subjects. 
Here  we  deal  not  with  the  Certain  but  with  the 
Probable.  The  realm  of  ideas,  beliefs,  theories, 
emotions,  institutions,  habits,  —  in  fact,  the  entire 
realm  of  human  thought,  human  society,  human 
conduct,  belongs  to  the  sphere  of  the  transitory  and 
changeable.  In  investigating  the  phenomena  of  this 
realm,  we  have  to  walk  by  methods  which  are  not 
only  not  the  same  as  those  which  belong  to  the  sci- 
ences of  nature,  but  differ  from  the  latter  by  being 
far  more  intricate.  The  investigation  of  probable 


SPECIALISM  IN  UNIVERSITY  EDUCATION       311 

matter  is  more  perplexing  and  less  satisfying  because 
its  results  are  less  definite  and  positive  than  are  those 
enquiries  at  the  end  of  which  stands,  like  a  statue 
closing  a  vista  between  trees,  the  figure  of  certain  and 
immutable  Truth.  Those  accordingly  who  try  to  ap- 
ply to  the  human  subjects  the  same  formulae  and 
methods  which  they  apply  to  nature  are  in  danger  of 
failing  when  they  enter  the  field  which  includes  his- 
tory and  all  political  or  social  phenomena.  Differences 
in  the  subject  matter  imply  differences  in  the  proper 
mode  of  treatment.  As  men  erred  five  centuries  ago 
when  they  tried  to  explain  nature  by  applying  to  her 
their  own  crudely  formed  abstract  notions,  so  now  it 
is  an  error  to  think  that  in  probable  matter  the  methods 
applicable  to  natural  phenomena  can  be  so  applied  as  to 
attain  equally  certain  and  definite  conclusions.  Does  it 
not  follow  that  an  education  in  the  methods  proper  to 
these  last-named  historical  and  social  fields  is  as  needful 
as  is  a  knowledge  of  the  methods  of  physical  enquiry  ? 
Sixty  years  ago  people  complained,  and  complained 
justly,  of  the  narrowness  of  those  persons,  some  of 
them  of  the  highest  eminence,  who  had  been  trained 
entirely  on  the  old  scheme  of  education,  which  largely 
consisted  in  grammatical  studies,  and  especially  in  a 
knowledge  of  the  ancient  languages.  Men  so  trained, 
men  highly  gifted  and  instructed,  often  failed  to  appre- 
ciate the  interest  and  value  of  the  study  of  nature,  and 
showed  a  strange  incapacity  to  understand  the  processes 
it  employs.  I  remember  some  such  among  our  leading 


312     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

English  statesmen.  A  whole  world  of  interests  and 
pleasures  was  closed  to  them  by  an  ignorance  that  was 
too  often  self-complacent.  In  travelling,  for  instance, 
distinguished  historians  did  not  see,  because  they  had 
not  been  taught  to  observe,  all  sorts  of  natural  features 
in  a  country  which  might  have  helped  them  to  under- 
stand its  history.  Bacon  has  warned  us  against  that  ab- 
sorption in  a  particular  set  of  ideas,  that  prepossession 
in  favor  of  one  particular  view  which  he  classes  among 
the  Idola  Specus,  the  phantasms  of  the  Cave,  which 
surround  the  man  who  sits  in  the  dark  recesses  of  his 
own  remote  and  secluded  thought  unillummed  by  the 
light  of  the  broad  sky.  So  now  the  devotion  to  any 
special  study,  whether  in  the  sphere  of  natural  science 
or  in  any  other,  tends  to  narrow  the  mind  and  prevents 
its  faculties  from  attaining  their  highest  development. 
Many  of  the  greatest  discoveries  have  arisen  from 
bringing  together  facts  and  ideas  drawn  from  different 
regions  whose  relations  had  not  previously  been  dis- 
cerned. The  more  you  extend  the  range  of  knowledge, 
the  more  you  increase  the  chances  of  such  discoveries. 
Most  of  the  great  men  to  whom  the  progress  of  science 
is  due  were  in  their  early  days  trained  not  as  specialists, 
but  had  minds  that  ranged  far  and  wide  like  keen- 
eyed  eagles  over  the  vast  field  of  knowledge. 

The  chief  end  of  education  is  to  stimulate  curiosity, 
to  make  a  man  ask  about  all  things,  be  they  familiar 
or  unfamiliar,  the  How  and  the  Why,  to  discover 
matter  for  enquiry  in  facts  which  other  people  have 


SPECIALISM  IN  UNIVERSITY  EDUCATION       313 

passed  over  without  thinking  of  the  problems  they 
suggest,  to  retain  that  activity  and  versatility  and 
freshness  which  are  the  most  characteristic  marks  of 
a  forceful  and  creative  intellect.  Is  it  not  wonderful 
how  many  things  were  overlooked  in  the  past  which 
we  now  perceive  to  need  investigation  ?  The  ancients, 
both  hi  the  Greek  and  in  the  Italian  lands,  must,  for 
instance,  have  noticed  how  various  are  the  aspects  and 
structure  of  different  kinds  of  rock.  The  differences 
between  gneiss  and  limestone,  between  basalt  and 
slate,  stared  them  in  the  face.  They  saw  fossil  shells 
hi  the  strata.  But  though  observant  men  like  Herod- 
otus sometimes  noted  facts  which  suggested  the  work- 
ing of  forces  that  had  changed  the  earth's  surface,  it 
did  not  occur  to  them  to  seek  any  general  explana- 
tion of  these  phenomena,  and  geological  science  is  not 
yet  two  centuries  old.  So  ancient  observers  described 
plants  and  were  interested  in  their  pharmaceutical 
properties;  they  described  tribes  of  men  and  some- 
times raised  questions  as  to  their  forms  of  speech,  but 
it  did  not  occur  to  them  to  classify  either  the  plants  or 
languages  on  any  scientific  principles.  Hippocrates 
was  a  great  physician,  scientific  in  his  methods.  Why 
did  his  successors  not  carry  them  on  with  a  persever- 
ance and  exactitude  which  would  have  produced  great 
results?  Was  it  because  they  had  given  themselves 
too  much  to  the  study  of  words  and  of  rhetoric,  and 
because  their  brilliant  dialectical  gifts  had  drawn  them 
away  from  the  observation  of  facts?  One  wonders 


UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

how  it  happened  that  a  race  so  wonderfully  gifted  as 
were  the  Greeks,  who  seemed  frequently  on  the  very 
edge  of  great  discoveries  in  physical  science,  did 
not  find  and  pursue  the  paths  which  have  led  us 
to  the  unveiling  of  the  secrets  of  Nature.  And  one 
wonders  also  whether  there  are  any  phenomena  which 
we  now  are  passing  by  unexamined  because  it  has 
never  struck  us  that  they  deserve  enquiry. 

The  wider  the  range  of  a  man's  interests,  the  more 
susceptible  he  is  to  ideas  of  many  kinds,  so  much  greater 
is  the  pleasure  which  life  can  afford  him,  and  so  much 
the  better  can  he  contribute  to  the  progress  of  the 
world  both  by  stimulating  others  and  by  himself 
pointing  out  the  way  in  which  advances  can  be  made. 
Different  as  are  the  phenomena  in  different  parts  of 
the  field  of  knowledge,  and  different  in  some  re- 
spects as  are  even  the  methods  to  be  applied,  the  habit 
of  keen  observation  and  steady  reflection  formed  in  any 
department  quickens  a  man's  powers  in  every  other; 
and  just  as  an  historian  will  profit  by  knowing  some- 
thing of  geology  or  botany,  so  a  student  of  natural 
history  may  profit  by  knowing  how  the  human  mind 
used  to  approach  nature  before  our  modern  methods 
had  come  into  being.  A  university  has  to  think  not 
only  of  forming  specialists,  but  of  making  these  special- 
ists better  by  giving  them  a  wide  range  of  knowledge, 
and  still  more  of  sending  out  men  who  sustain  the  level 
of  taste  and  insight  in  the  whole  community  and  are 
fit  to  be  its  intellectual  leaders.  ' 


SPECIALISM  IN  UNIVERSITY   EDUCATION        315 

You  may  ask  how  time  is  to  be  found  both  for  special 
studies  and  for  the  sort  of  general  cultivation  that  I 
have  tried  to  describe.  Must  the  general  studies  pre- 
cede specialization,  or  is  it  possible  to  carry  them  on 
together,  and  to  show  young  men,  even  in  their  last  uni- 
versity year,  how  to  correlate  their  special  scientific  stud- 
ies with  a  mastery  of  other  fields  ?  These  are  practical 
questions  which  I  must  leave  to  your  superior  com- 
petence. The  principle  which  we  seem  chiefly  called 
upon  to  uphold  is  the  principle  of  breadth  and  catholic- 
ity in  education,  the  recognition  not  only  of  the  duty  of 
a  great  university  to  provide  teaching  in  all  the  main 
subjects,  but  also  of  the  truth  that  a  one-sided  educa- 
tion is  an  imperfect  education.  The  error  of  those 
who  a  century  ago  deemed  a  grammatical  and  literary 
curriculum  sufficient  was  no  greater  than  is  that  of 
those  who  now  dispute  and  seek  to  exclude  the  hu- 
man subjects ;  or  who  hold  that  any  single  branch 
either  of  the  human  or  of  the  natural  subjects  is 
enough  to  inform  the  mind  or  to  develop  and  polish 
it  to  its  highest  efficiency. 


THE  STUDY  OF  ANCIENT  LITERATURE 

ADDRESS  TO  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  MICHIGAN  CHAPTER  OF  THE 
<J>BK  SOCIETY,  APRIL,  1911. 


THE  STUDY  OF  ANCIENT  LITERATURE 

ADDRESS  TO  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  MICHIGAN  CHAPTER  or  THE 
4>BK  SOCIETY,  APRIL,  1911. 

NOT  long  ago  I  read  in  an  American  novel  this 
sentence :  "The  life  of  an  American  man  is  Business." 
If  this  merely  meant  that  Business  is  the  dominant  fea- 
ture in  the  life  of  the  United  States,  occupying  most 
of  men's  time  and  thoughts,  it  is  true,  and  scarcely  less 
true  of  such  countries  as  England  and  Germany.  As  it 
is  everybody's  first  need  everywhere  to  make  an  income 
sufficient  to  support  himself  and  his  family,  so  in  a 
country  which  is  still  hi  the  stage  of  swift  material 
development  and  where  opportunities  abound  for  the 
exercise  of  practical  talent  and  the  amassing  of  large 
fortunes,  commerce  and  industry  and  such  professions 
as  engineering  and  law  must  necessarily  hold  the  fore- 
most place. 

But  the  sentence  may  also  mean  that  the  normal 
American  man  thinks  and  cares  for  nothing  but  business ; 
and  that  was  probably  the  sense  intended  by  the  writer. 
If  this  were  true,  you  as  University  men  would  think 
it  ought  not  to  be  true,  and  would  deem  it  disparag- 
ing to  your  universities.  Of  all  the  countries  of  the 
world,  the  United  States  is  that  in  which  the  largest 

319 


320     UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

proportion  of  university  graduates  enter  a  business 
career,  or  conversely,  it  is  the  country  in  which  the 
largest  proportion  of  men  engaged  in  business  have 
received  a  university  education.  Now  one  main  use 
of  that  education  is  to  prevent  business  from  being  the 
whole  of  an  American  man's  life;  in  other  words,  its 
aim  is  to  give  him  intellectual  interests  and  tastes 
outside  business.  Whatever  a  man's  active  career, 
be  it  commercial  business  or  any  other,  he  finds  it  hard 
to  maintain  those  other  interests  under  the  constant 
pressure  of  the  practical  work  of  life.  That  is  why 
university  teaching  ought  to  try  to  root  them  so  deeply 
in  the  mind  and  give  them  such  a  hold  on  our  affection 
that  they  will  resist  the  pressure. 

Two  generations  ago  the  study  of  ancient  literature 
held  a  foremost  place  among  those  intellectual  interests, 
and  not  a  few  university  men  used  to  go  on  reading  and 
drawing  pleasure  from  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics 
through  the  whole  of  their  lives.  These  writings 
had  become  a  part  of  their  minds.  Few  men  so  read 
now;  few  in  Europe,  still  fewer  here.  The  study  of 
Latin  has  shrunk  to  narrow  dimensions,  and  that  of 
Greek  is  in  many  universities  practically  extinct.  In  the 
West  both  languages  are  more  studied  by  women 
than  by  men.  An  association  has,  however,  been 
founded  for  defending,  and  if  possible  extending, 
classical  studies.  As  its  headquarters  are  planted  in 
this  great  university,  you  may  naturally  wish  to  hear 
some  remarks  upon  the  case  to  be  made  for  those 


THE  STUDY  OF  ANCIENT  LITERATURE  321 

studies,  for  they  can  no  longer  rely  on  tradition  but 
must  support  their  claim  by  definite  and  positive  argu- 
ments which  will  appeal  to  a  public  that  is  now,  both 
in  Europe  and  here,  bent  upon  the  practically  useful, 
and  somewhat  prejudiced  against  every  habit  which 
the  (now  discredited)  "wisdom  of  our  ancestors" 
favoured. 

Let  us  begin  by  frankly  admitting  that  the  excessive 
importance  given  a  century  ago  to  the  languages  of 
Greece  and  Rome  has  prejudiced  them  in  the  modern 
eye.  The  claims  made  for  them  were  so  extravagant  as 
to  have  disparaged  their  real  merits.  We  may  more- 
over doubt  whether  some  of  the  arguments  used  on 
their  behalf  have  much  weight.  Grammar  is  a  useful 
study  if  taught  in  a  rational  way,  so  as  to  induce 
thought,  and  not  by  forcing  wretched  children  to 
repeat  its  rules  by  rote.  It  is  also  true  that  the 
grammar  of  inflected  and  synthetic  languages  affords 
better  mental  training  than  does  that  of  French  or 
German,  which  it  is  proposed  to  substitute  for  Latin, 
not  to  speak  of  English,  the  grammar  of  which  is 
perhaps  better  left  untaught  altogether.  Nevertheless, 
the  advantages  of  learning  Greek  and  Latin  grammar 
have  been  exaggerated,  and  it  has  absorbed  an  undue 
share  of  the  learner's  time  and  toil. 

It  used  also  to  be  argued  that  a  knowledge  of  Latin 
was  serviceable  because  it  explained  the  etymology  of 
many  English  words,  and  because  it  was  a  gateway  lead- 
ing into  the  modern  Romance  languages.  Both  con- 


322      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

siderations  have  a  certain  weight,  but  in  education  there 
are  now  so  many  subjects  competing  for  the  student's 
time  that  a  stronger  case  must  be  made  for  each  sub- 
ject than  was  thought  necessary  two  centuries  ago. 
More  importance  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  the 
argument  that  the  learning  of  any  language  besides 
one's  own  is  of  value  to  the  mind,  because  the  mere 
process  of  turning  thought  expressed  in  one  set  of 
words  into  another  set  of  words  is  in  itself  a  training  in 
thought,  and  tends  to  enlarge  the  range  of  a  man's 
ideas  by  suggesting  different  ways  of  expressing  them. 
But  there  again,  though  the  argument  is  a  sound  one, 
it  has  not  proved  sufficient  to  carry  conviction  to  any 
minds  except  those  who  have  given  serious  thought  to 
educational  subjects.  Most  people  say  that  the  result 
is  not  adequate  to  the  tune  spent  hi  learning  an  ancient 
language,  and  that  if  it  is  desirable  to  possess  some 
language  besides  one's  own,  why  not  learn  French  or 
German  or  Spanish,  in  which  there  is  a  prospect  of  an 
immediate  return  of  profit  upon  the  capital  of  the  tune 
invested  by  the  learner. 

You  have  got  to  face  the  fact  that  to  the  large  major- 
ity of  men  nowadays,  whatever  relates  to  the  past 
seems  obsolete  and  useless  —  "What  difference  can  it 
make  to  us  now,"  they  say,  "what  men  did  or  wrote  or 
thought  twenty  centuries  ago  ?  Their  ideas  may  have 
been  good  when  first  expressed,  but  we  have  got  far 
beyond  them.  They  supposed  that  the  sun  went  round 
the  earth.  They  did  not  use  steam  or  electricity,  and 


THE  STUDY  OF  ANCIENT  LITERATURE  323 

did  not  even  know  the  composition  of  air  and  of  water. 
Of  what  value  can  their  writings  be  to  us  ?  " 

Even  those  of  your  antagonists  who  admit  the  value 
and  charm  of  good  literature  will  tell  you  that  there  is 
in  our  own  language  literature  more  than  sufficient 
to  occupy  all  the  time  that  the  learner  can  spare  for 
that  side  of  education.  "If  few  persons  know  more 
than  three  or  four  plays  of  Shakespeare,  if  few  edu- 
cated men  of  this  generation  have  read  through 
Paradise  Lost,  why  send  us  to  Homer  or  ^Eschylus 
when  we  can  get  what  is  just  as  good  in  our  own 
tongue  and  yet  do  not  generally  care  to  get  it  ?  " 

These  are  the  views,  this  is  the  attitude  of  mind 
which  confronts  you  hi  your  efforts  to  advocate  the 
study  of  the  ancient  classics.  Your  difficulty  is  that 
there  is  very  little  common  ground  between  you  and 
them.  Your  conception  of  education  differs  from  that 
which  is  now  popular,  and  your  sense  of  the  value  of  the 
ancient  classics  is  incommunicable,  because  it  springs 
from  a  personal  knowledge  which  nowadays  com- 
paratively few  possess. 

Accordingly,  in  suggesting  to  you  what  seem  to  me 
the  strongest  considerations  by  which  your  contention 
can  be  supported,  I  must  make  two  preliminary 
remarks. 

One  is  that  I  submit  these  considerations  in  no  belief 
that  they  will  prove  effective  with  those  you  seek  to 
convince.  They  are  given  only  in  the  hope  that  they 
may  confirm  you  in  your  own  convictions,  and  possi- 


324      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

bly  make  clearer  to  you  the  grounds  of  those  convic- 
tions. 

The  other  remark  is  that  it  is  too  late  to  attempt  to 
restore  to  Greek  and  Latin  the  place  they  held  in  the 
scheme  of  liberal  education  seventy  years  ago.  It  is 
not  to  be  desired  that  they  should  recover  it,  because 
the  percentage  of  pupils  who  derived  substantial 
and  permanent  profit  was  a  small  percentage.  You 
may  say  that  this  was  largely  due  to  the  unintelligent 
character  of  the  old  teaching,  which  dwelt  upon  gram- 
mar and  neglected  literature.  Still  the  fact  remains 
that  under  any  system  of  teaching  more  than  a  half  of 
the  boys  in  schools  and  undergraduates  in  colleges 
who  may  be  taught  Latin,  and  five-sixths  of  those 
who  may  be  taught  Greek,  will  not  get  far  enough  to 
enjoy  the  literature  and  give  it  a  permanent  hold  on 
their  minds.  Your  efforts  must,  therefore,  be  directed 
towards  securing  that  there  shall  always  be  a  provision 
of  classical  teaching  sufficient  to  enable  those  who 
show  aptitude  for  these  studies  to  pursue  them,  and 
that  the  universities  shall,  by  their  degree  regulations, 
or  otherwise,  impress  upon  the  student  the  high  value 
attaching  to  such  a  mastery  of  the  two  languages  as 
will  open  to  him  the  enjoyment  of  the  literatures  they 
contain.  How  many  thousands  of  students  annually 
graduate  in  the  faculty  of  arts  from  all  the  universities 
of  the  United  States  I  do  not  know  —  doubtless  more 
than  ten  thousand.  What  you  desire  is,  I  assume, 
that  of  these  thousands  of  graduates  there  should  always 


THE  STUDY  OF  ANCIENT  LITERATURE  325 

be  some  hundreds  (besides  those  who  intend  to  be 
clergymen  or  university  teachers)  who  can  read  Herod- 
otus and  Plato  with  pleasure,  and  when  they  wish  to 
be  sure  of  the  meaning  of  a  passage  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment will  go  to  the  original  Greek  for  help. 

Now  can  we  find  grounds  to  show  that  it  is  in  the 
interest  of  the  nation  that  there  should  always  be,  say, 
this  five  per  cent  or  upwards.  You  probably  agree  in  the 
view  that  it  is  in  the  literature  of  the  ancient  languages 
that  their  real  value  lies,  not  in  a  knowledge  of  their 
grammar,  nor  in  the  help  they  can  afford  to  the  lawyer 
or  physician  or  clergyman  in  his  profession,  consider- 
able as  that  help  may  be.  What  then  is  the  special 
value  of  these  ancient  literatures?  Do  they  give  us 
anything,  and  if  so,  what,  that  we  cannot  equally  well 
obtain  from  modern  literature  ? 

There  has  never  been  an  era  in  the  history  of  the 
civilized  peoples  when  they  were  all  so  entirely  and 
almost  exclusively  occupied  with  the  present  as  they  are 
to-day.  The  Romano-Hellenic  world  lived  upon  the 
Greek  literature  of  the  times  from  Homer  downwards 
and  based  education  upon  it.  In  the  Dark  Ages  and 
Middle  Ages  men  were  constantly  looking  back  to 
the  ancient  world  as  a  sort  of  golden  age  and  were 
cherishing  every  fragment  that  had  come  down  to 
them  therefrom.  The  scholars  and  thinkers  of  the 
Renaissance  who  obtained  those  Greek  books  for 
which  their  predecessors  had  vainly  sighed,  drew  from 
those  books  their  inspiration.  It  was  they  that  lit 


326      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

up  the  fires  of  new  literary  effort  in  Italy,  France, 
Spain,  Germany,  Britain;  and  thereafter  two  cen- 
turies were  spent  in  commenting  on  and  imitating  the 
classical  authors.  The  Bible  and  the  Fathers  of  the 
Church  had  been  the  intellectual  food  of  the  clergy 
down  to  the  age  of  the  Reformation,  and  from  that 
tune  Protestants  as  well  as  Roman  Catholics  were 
employed  till  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
in  expounding  and  arguing  about  the  doctrines  of 
Christianity.  All  through  those  centuries,  past  events 
and  past  writings  occupied  the  minds  of  men  (though 
history  was  not  much  taught  as  history)  and  were 
a  large  part  of  the  instruction  given  in  schools  and 
universities.  Many  ancient  books  continued  to  be 
treated  as  models  of  excellence  long  after  some  better 
books  on  similar  subjects  had  been  produced  in  a 
modern  tongue.  Even  in  this  new  country,  the  edu- 
cated men  of  your  Revolutionary  period  were  brought 
up  on  Greek  and  Latin  authors  and  learnt  a  great 
deal  about  the  ancient  world.  You  had  not  then  made 
history  for  yourselves.  In  our  time,  however,  we  see 
phenomena  altogether  different.  Theology  engages 
much  less  of  the  average  man's  thoughts,  while  persons 
of  a  specially  religious  cast  of  mind  are  occupied  far 
more  with  good  works  and  what  are  called  social  ques- 
tions than  with  the  Bible  or  Christian  history. 

Natural  science  has  filled  the  void  left  by  the  dimin- 
ished interest  in  the  things  of  the  past.  It  concerns 
itself  entirely  with  the  present,  or  rather  with  a  world 


THE  STUDY  OF  ANCIENT  LITERATURE  327 

in  which  time  does  not  exist  and  in  which  therefore 
there  is  no  past.  Even  among  those  who  know  little 
or  nothing  about  any  branch  of  science  the  impression 
prevails  that  science  and  its  applications  are  the  form 
of  knowledge  that  now  counts  for  success  in  life. 

The  social  and  political  changes  in  progress  since  1789, 
and  most  evidently  during  the  last  thirty  years  both 
here  and  hi  Europe,  have  raised  in  the  social  scale,  and 
have  provided  instruction  for,  classes  which  had  been 
previously  illiterate,  so  that  the  standard  in  literature, 
and  especially  in  ephemeral  literature,  is  no  longer 
fixed  by  a  small,  highly  educated  class,  but  is  the  result- 
ant of  the  tastes  and  notions  of  various  classes, — some 
of  them  on  a  low  level  of  knowledge.  Newspapers,  in 
particular,  are  written  primarily  with  a  view  to  circu- 
lation, and  to  the  income  from  advertisements  which 
circulation  insures;  that  is,  they  are  written  for  the 
masses  of  the  people.  Now  for  the  masses,  the  past, 
with  its  heroes,  its  achievements,  its  literature,  has 
little  meaning.  Their  education  has  not  given  them 
the  opportunity  of  knowing  or  caring  about  it.  Their 
rise  has  increased  the  already  overmastering  impulse 
towards  elements  of  practical  utility  in  education. 

There  used  to  be  one  fountain  whence  the  whole 
body  of  the  people  drew  ideas  that  carried  them  back 
into  the  past  and  touched  their  imagination  by  pre- 
senting figures  and  scenes  very  unlike  their  own  daily 
life.  That  was  the  Bible.  It  is  now  unhappily  less 
familiar  than  formerly  to  every  class  in  the  community. 


328     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

A  smaller  proportion  of  both  the  richer  and  the  poorer 
classes  attend  church  than  was  the  case  a  century  ago, 
and  whoever  has  been  in  the  habit,  in  public  addresses, 
of  referring  or  alluding  to  Biblical  incidents  or  of  using 
Biblical  phrases,  perceives  that  he  cannot  now  assume, 
as  he  could  have  done  forty  years  ago,  that  a  large  pro- 
portion of  his  audience  would  recognize  the  reference 
or  the  phrase. 

Thus  in  many  ways  and  through  divers  influences, 
men  of  to-day  are  now  more  purely  children  of  the 
present  than  was  any  previous  generation.  This  is 
even  more  true  of  North  America  than  of  Europe,  for 
here  there  are  far  fewer  things  to  recall  the  past,  fewer 
links  binding  the  present  to  it.  Among  the  mass  of 
the  people  interest  in  the  past  goes  back  hardly  farther 
than  to  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  it  is  only  the  ex- 
cellent society  of  Colonial  Dames  who  exert  themselves 
to  recall  to  the  public  events  of  earlier  date.  Only  the 
best  educated  men  seem  to  duly  realize  the  continuity 
of  American  history  with  European  history,  and  to  feel 
that  all  that  happened  in  Europe  before  the  middle  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  as  well  as  a  good  deal  that  has 
happened  since,  is  a  part  of  your  American  history 
and  has  gone  to  the  making  you  what  you  are. 

Now  although  the  world  may  be  weary  of  the  past,  as 
Shelley  said  a  hundred  years  ago,  it  cannot  shake  itself 
clear  of  the  past.  You  here  and  we  in  Europe  may  be 
eagerly  bent  on  the  future,  resolved  to  make  it  better  for 
the  bulk  of  mankind  than  the  past  has  been.  But  we 


THE  STUDY  OF  ANCIENT  LITERATURE  329 

can  conjecture  the  future  only  from  what  we  know  of 
the  past,  that  is  to  say,  from  what  we  know  of  human 
nature  and  the  processes  by  which  it  and  human 
institutions  change.  One  who  knows  only  his  own 
country  and  people  does  not  really  know  them,  because 
it  is  only  by  knowing  something  of  other  countries 
and  their  peoples  that  he  can  tell  which  characteristics 
of  his  own  people  are  normal,  generally  present  in  all 
peoples,  and  which  are  peculiar  to  his  own.  So,  likewise, 
he  who  knows  only  his  own  time  does  not  really  know  it, 
for  he  cannot  distinguish  between  the  characteristics  that 
are  transient  and  those  that  are  permanent.  This  is  the 
main  use  of  history,  besides  of  course  the  pleasure  which 
all  knowledge  gives.  To  know  what  we  are,  we  must 
know  how  we  came  to  be  what  we  are,  and  must  realize 
that  we  shall  before  long  pass  into  something  different. 

A  profitable  knowledge  of  history  consists  not  so 
much  in  remembering  events,  —  wars  and  treaties,  and 
the  making  of  constitutions  and  the  reigns  and  charac- 
ters of  kings  or  presidents,  —  as  in  knowing  what  men 
were  like  in  the  days  that  are  gone.  What  were  their 
aims  and  hopes  and  pleasures  and  beliefs?  How  did 
they  think  and  feel  ? 

The  best  source  of  that  knowledge  is,  for  any  period 
of  the  past,  to  be  found  in  the  literature  it  produced, 
for  that  was  the  natural  expression  of  its  life,  given 
forth  through  its  more  gifted  spirits,  and  that  is  a  record 
which,  being  contemporary  and  spontaneous,  cannot 
have  been  perverted,  as  narratives  of  fact  sometimes 


330     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

are,  by  those  who  come  after.  Thus  the  periods  which 
we  can  study  with  most  profit  are  those  which  have  left 
us  not  only  a  record  of  events,  but  also  a  rich  and 
noble  literature  contemporaneous  with  the  events 
through  which  the  soul  of  the  people,  its  ideas  and  its 
impulses,  revealed  itself  hi  action.  History  is  the  study 
of  human  nature  and  is  best  studied  when  one  has  the 
means  of  interpreting  men's  acts  by  their  thoughts  and 
their  thoughts  by  their  acts.  Literature  gives  a  picture 
which  is  in  so  far  imperfect  that  it  tells  us  less  than  we 
desire  to  know  about  the  ordinary  man  because  it 
proceeds  from  the  more  powerful  minds  who  have  the 
faculty  of  expression.  But  it  speaks  with  a  compensat- 
ing vividity. 

Nobody  can  hope  to  comprehend  many  historical 
periods  through  their  literature  as  well  as  by  familiarity 
with  their  events.  We  must  select  a  few  for  study. 
Now  there  is  one  period  which  has  three  recommenda- 
tions making  it  more  instructive  than  any  other.  It  is 
the  best  general  introduction  to  all  historical  study  and 
to  all  literary  study.  This  is  the  classical  age  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  and  the  three  things  that  recommend  it 
are  the  following:  — 

I.  It  is  the  beginning  of  literature  and  practically 
the  beginning  of  history,  its  first  great  product,  the 
Homeric  poems,  antedating  even  the  earliest  prophets 
of  Israel  whose  utterances  have  come  down  to  us  in  the 
Old  Testament.  As  the  most  beautiful  hour  of  the 
day  is  the  Dawn,  though  city  dwellers  seldom  see  it, 


THE  STUDY    OF  ANCIENT  LITERATURE           331 

and  as  the  most  winning  time  of  the  year  is  the  Spring, 
so  there  is  a  peculiar  charm  in  the  first  efforts  man 
made  in  the  supreme  art  of  poetry.  Simplicity  and 
directness,  sometimes  joined  to  exuberant  imagination, 
delight  us  in  most  of  the  earlier  literature  of  all  nations. 
We  find  them  in  the  old  Celtic  poetry  and  the  old 
Arabian  poetry,  in  the  Eddaic  poems  and  the  Sagas  of 
Iceland,  in  the  Lay  of  the  Nibelungs,  in  the  Vedas,  in 
the  ballads  of  our  own  race,  from  the  song  of  the  battle 
of  Brunanburh,  down  to  the  ballads  of  Chevy  Chase 
and  Flodden.  But  in  the  early  poetry  of  Greece  these 
qualities  are  united  to  a  constructive  power  and  an 
artistic  sense  which  can  be  found  nowhere  else.  Even 
in  the  Attic  dramatists  and  the  later  Greek  lyrists 
something  of  the  primal  simplicity  remains. 

II.  The  literature  and  institutions  and  civilization  of 
Greece  and  Rome  are  for  all  the  modern  nations  the 
first  fountain  heads  of  that  European  civilization 
which  has  swept  down  to  us  in  a  widened  current. 
Art,  the  drama,  philosophy,  geometry,  speculations  in 
the  field  of  politics  as  well  as  hi  the  fields  of  physical 
enquiry,  all  begin  with  the  Greeks :  there  is  hardly  a 
branch  of  intellectual  achievement  that  is  not  traceable 
to  them.  So  from  Rome  descend  the  institutions  of 
law  and  government  under  which  the  modern  world 
lives,  though  modified  in  Great  Britain  and  America 
by  Teutonic  ideas  and  traditions.  In  the  history  of 
the  ancients  we  see  our  own  beginnings  and  compre- 
hend them  better.  We  see  also  the  environment  into 


332      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

which  Christianity  was  born  and  the  influences  that 
affected  its  growth,  moulded  its  forms  of  worship,  gave 
it  a  dogmatic  system  and  a  hierarchy.  No  later  period 
has  therefore  the  same  importance  for  modern  peoples  as 
that  of  Romano-Hellenic  civilization,  for  out  of  it  there 
sprang  that  which  is  common  to  all  the  nations  of  the 
modern  world  and  which  they  possess  as  a  joint  heritage. 
III.  The  literature  of  these  two  languages  better 
illustrates  their  history,  and  the  history  stands  in  closer 
relation  to  the  literature,  than  is  the  case  with  any 
other  of  the  more  recent  national  literatures.  It  is, 
moreover,  all  the  fitter  to  be  studied,  because  while  it 
is  as  a  whole  scanty,  compared  with  modern  literature, 
it  contains  an  unusually  large  proportion  of  work  of  ex- 
traordinary merit.  We  are  accustomed  to  deplore  the 
loss  of  many  works  of  great  ancient  authors.  Some 
have  specially  mourned  over  the  lost  books  of  Livy  and 
Tacitus,  some  over  Lucilius  and  Varro,  some  over  what 
has  perished  of  ^schylus,  but  perhaps  the  greatest  loss 
has  been  that  of  nearly  all  the  Greek  lyric  poetry  except 
the  Odes  of  Pindar.  Still  we  may  console  ourselves  with 
the  reflection  that  so  much  that  has  reached  us  came 
from  the  pens  of  the  best  writers,  and  that  so  much  of 
what  has  survived  is  first-rate.  No  people,  not  even 
the  Italian,  has  produced  so  large  a  body  of  poetry  of 
the  highest  order  as  the  Greeks  did,  except  our  own 
English  or  British  stock.  It  is  the  union  of  the  histor- 
ical interest  which  the  Greek  republics  inspire  with  the 
splendour  of  the  literature  they  produced  that  gives  to 


THE  STUDY  OF  ANCIENT  LITERATURE     333 

both  of  them  their  unique  charm.  Works  quite  as 
great  have  been  produced  since.  Modern  literature  is 
not  only  far  wider  in  its  range  but  richer  in  the  variety 
of  its  content.  It  is  dangerous  to  speak  of  ancient 
literature  as  a  whole,  for  great  is  the  diversity  be- 
tween the  earliest  Greek  poets  and  the  later  writers, 
either  Greek  or  Roman.  But  nearly  all,  as  compared 
with  the  modern,  have  that  special  flavour  and  charm, 
and  also  that  special  value  for  this  old  and  complex 
civilization  of  ours  which  the  efforts  of  a  joyous,  vigor- 
ous, and  sensitive  race  possess. 

III.  Just  as  the  political  ideas  of  Greece  and  the 
political  institutions  of  Rome  were  a  point  of  departure 
for  the  modern  world,  so  Greek  and  Latin  authors,  and 
especially  the  poets,  have  become  the  common  stock  of 
the  learned  men,  the  thinkers  and  the  writers,  of  all 
modern  countries.  They  formed  the  mind  of  Europe 
from  the  fifteenth  till  the  eighteenth  century.  Their 
ideas,  their  literary  forms,  their  canons  of  taste,  are 
the  foundation  of  that  general  modern  culture  which 
educated  men  are  still  assumed  to  possess.  No  other 
literature,  except  the  Bible  and  a  very  few  of  what  may 
be  called  the  classic  books  of  Christianity,  is  in  the 
same  sense  a  link  between  different  nations  and  has 
become  equally  the  property  of  all. 

These  are  some  of  the  reasons  which  give  its  incom- 
parable value  and  stimulative  power  to  the  history,  and 
still  more  to  the  literature,  of  classical  antiquity.  It 
can  never  grow  old,  for  it  has  the  vivacity  and 


334      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

vitality  of  youth.  Its  ideas  retain  their  charm,  partly 
because  they  are  simple,  partly  because  they  are  ex- 
pressed with  unrivalled  felicity.  They  light  up  the 
history  of  their  times  because  the  life  and  mind  of  the 
people  speak  so  directly  through  them.  This  undying 
freshness  gives  them  that  strange  quality  of  seeming  at 
once  so  far  off  and  so  near,  just  as  our  own  earliest  boy- 
hood often  seems  nearer  to  us  than  do  the  years  of  middle 
life  because  it  has  the  vividness  of  first  impressions. 
Here,  however,  let  me  stop  to  answer  an  objection 
that  will  be  made  to  the  arguments  I  have  been  trying 
to  present.  "Assuming"  — so  the  objector  will  say  — 
"  the  value  of  ancient  literature  for  historical  purposes 
to  be  all  that  you  represent,  cannot  that  value  be 
secured  by  reading  the  books  in  translations?  Why 
take  out  of  the  few  student  years,  already  overcrowded 
by  the  claims  of  other  and  more  obviously  necessary 
studies,  the  time  needed  to  master  two  languages 
which  are  confessedly  of  little  practical  utility  to-day. 
Literature  can  be  enjoyed  in  translations.  The  Ger- 
mans who  read  Shakespeare  in  a  translation  appreciate 
him  quite  as  much  as  we  do,  in  fact  some  of  them  think 
he  must  have  been  a  German.  Goethe's  criticisms 
on  his  plays  are  the  best  that  have  ever  been  made. 
We  read  and  enjoy  in  English  versions  the  Icelandic 
Sagas,  and  Don  Quixote,  and  many  another  great  work. 
The  Bible  itself  formed  the  mind  of  mediaeval  Europe 
in  a  Latin  version  and  thereafter  formed  the  mind 
of  post-mediaeval  Britain  and  America  in  an  English 


THE  STUDY  OF  ANCIENT  LITERATURE  335 

version,  and  that  version  is  admittedly  equal  in  beauty 
to  the  Hebrew  text  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  superior 
to  the  Greek  text  of  the  New." 

Our  answer  to  this  is  that  no  translation  gives,  or 
comes  near  giving,  the  effect  which  the  ancient  classics 
produce  when  read  hi  the  original.  The  charm  of 
that  form  is  incommunicable,  for  the  magic  of  words 
rests  largely  in  their  associations,  and  in  what  may  be 
called  the  sympathy  of  sense  and  sound.  The  delicate 
fragrance  of  the  ideas  in  their  native  form  evaporates 
in  the  attempt  to  pour  thought  from  the  vessel  of  one 
language  into  that  of  another.  This  is  especially  true 
of  poetry,  and  more  true  of  philosophy,  in  which  so 
much  turns  upon  the  use  of  precise  terms,  than  it  is  of 
history  or  of  oratory.  In  stating  and  arguing  about 
facts,  less  depends  upon  the  suggestive  quality  of  the 
words  and  upon  their  rhythm  than  when  feeling  as  well 
as  reason  is  addressed,  either  in  verse  or  in  imaginative 
prose.  To  estimate  exactly  how  much  is  lost  in  trans- 
lation is  not  easy,  because  whoever  having  read  a  great 
book  first  in  its  original  language  reads  it  thereafter  in 
a  translation  is  so  struck  by  the  loss  as  to  undervalue 
the  latter :  and  it  rarely  happens  that  anyone  who  reads 
such  a  book  first  hi  a  translation  afterwards  reads  it  in 
the  original.  Many  of  you  may  have  had  with  Dante 
the  experience  which  was  mine,  that  little  pleasure 
can  be  derived  from  any  translation  —  and  less  from 
verse  than  from  prose  translations  —  and  that  the 
splendour  and  power  of  the  poet  are  not  realized  till  he 


336      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

is  studied  in  the  difficult  Italian  of  his  time.  A  trans- 
lation, if  fairly  literal,  is  of  course  better  than  nothing. 
But  nobody  can  feel  the  true  charm  of  the  Greek 
writers,  nor  of  Virgil,  nor  perhaps  even  of  Lucretius  and 
Catullus,  except  in  the  original.  The  original  is  the 
only  door  through  which  we  can  enter  into  the  life  and 
thought  of  the  ancient  world,  near  us  because  it  is 
simple,  yet  mysterious  because  it  is  remote. 

The  teachings  of  the  ancients  are  precious,  although 
they  come  from  afar,  since  we  obtain  from  them  a 
picture  of  a  sphere  of  thought  and  emotion  unlike  our 
own,  and  therefore  fitted  to  correct  the  narrowness 
which  rests  content  in  its  own  modernity,  and  which 
cannot  feel  after  the  future  because  it  does  not  compre- 
hend the  variety  of  experiences  that  have  moulded 
man  in  the  past. 

It  is  in  this  sense  of  a  long  and  rich  past  and  in  the 
fuller  and  finer  appreciation  of  poetic  beauty  which 
ancient  literature  gives  that  its  true  worth  lies,  not  in 
grammar,  not  in  quarries  of  etymological  or  philological 
enquiry,  not  in  any  professional  uses  to  which  scholar- 
ship can  be  turned.  The  practical  use  to  be  held  out, 
the  fair  guerdon  to  be  won,  is  Enjoyment,  a  unique  kind 
of  enjoyment.  Sometimes  one  feels  as  if  it  were  worth 
while  to  learn  Greek  merely  in  order  to  appreciate  the 
melody  and  majesty  of  Homer.  Think  of  such  a 
line  as  this, 

Ovped  re  (TKLoevra   OaXacrcra  ri  iJ 
1  Iliad,  I,  157. 


THE   STUDY  OF  ANCIENT  LITERATURE  337 

or  of  the  infinite  pathos  of  the  words  which  tell  the  death 
of  the  youthful  hero, 


apa  fjnv  eiTToira  reXos  Bavdroio 
*  IK  peQcav  TrrajaeifTj  "AtSotrSe 
AOv  Trorpov  -yooolcra,  XITTOVCT*  avbpoTTJTa  Kal 

Or  remember  that  other  famous  passage  which  ends 
with  words  that  have  fired  the  hearts  and  nerved 
the  arms  of  a  hundred  generations  of  patriots, 

'Ets  oiaivbs  a/Horos  a^vvf.(j6a.i  irepl  irarpTj?.2 

Is  it  not  worth  while  to  have  in  the  background  of 
one's  mind  the  vision  of  a  far-off  romantic  world  to 
which  we  can  turn  back  in  thought  and  feel  refreshed 
as  it  refreshes  us  to  descry,  beyond  the  busy  streets  of 
a  city,  the  blue  peak  of  a  distant  mountain  range. 

You  will  not  suppose  me  to  be  arguing  that  these 
studies,  high  as  one  may  rate  their  value,  are  indispen- 
sable to  one  who  would  attain  the  best  kind  of  culture 
or  produce  the  best  kind  of  literature.  To  genius 
nothing  is  indispensable.  What  others  can  absorb  by 
training  and  study,  the  most  gifted  minds  can  achieve 
by  their  innate  power  : 

Pauci,  quos  aequus  amavit 
lupiter,  aut  ardens  evexit  ad  aethera  virtus, 
Dis  geniti,  potuere.3 

Some  of  our  most  brilliant  writers,  some  of  our 
strongest  thinkers,  have  had  little  in  the  way  of  literary 

1  Hiad,  XXII,  361.  2  Iliad,  XH,  243.  *  jEneid,  VI. 

z 


338      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

education.  Yet  even  they  might  have  gained  from  it 
something  in  fineness  without  losing  anything  in  strength. 
Neither  do  I  venture  to  suggest  that  you  can  expect 
any  large  number  of  young  men  to  throw  themselves 
into  studies  that  seem  so  remote  from  the  pursuits  of 
practical  life.  Comparatively  few  will  see  any  use  in 
what  they  call  dead  languages,  or  will  feel  any  taste  for 
them.  But  some  students  you  must  have,  and  those 
not  professors  only.  You  must  see  to  it  that  business 
is  not  the  whole  life  of  all  American  business  men, 
but  that  room  is  made  in  the  lives  of  some  few 
of  them  for  the  enjoyments  of  ancient  literature. 
The  few  are  worth  regarding,  for  it  is  always  by 
the  few  best  and  most  cultivated  minds  that  tra- 
ditions are  preserved  and  taste  is  maintained  at  a  high 
level.  They  tend  and  keep  alive  the  sacred  flame. 

May  it  not  be  expected  that  the  strain  and  stress  of 
commercial  and  industrial  life  which  now  forces  the 
American  youth  to  sacrifice  everything  else  to  fitting 
himself  for  practical  life,  and  leaves  the  American  busi- 
ness man  scarce  any  leisure  for  intellectual  pleasures, 
will  before  long  abate?  A  time  will  come  when 
the  development  of  the  country's  resources  will  have 
been  completed  and  the  opportunities  for  making  huge 
fortunes  will  have  become  less  frequent.  If  you  can 
keep  classical  studies  from  further  declining  during  the 
next  fifty  years,  your  battle  will  have  been  won. 


ON  THE  WRITING  AND   TEACHING   OF 
HISTORY 

COMMENCEMENT  ADDRESS  AS  CHANCELLOR  OF  UNION  COLLEGE, 
SCHENECTADY,  JUNE,  IQII. 


ON   THE   WRITING  AND   TEACHING  OF 
HISTORY 

COMMENCEMENT  ADDRESS  AS  CHANCELLOR  OF  UNION  COLLEGE, 
SCHENECTADY,  JUNE,  IQII. 

NOWHERE  in  the  world  is  the  study  of  history 
pursued  with  more  zeal  and  assiduity  than  in  the 
universities  and  colleges  of  the  United  States.  There 
must  be  many  hundreds  of  professors  and  instructors 
engaged  in  teaching  it,  and  many  others  are  occupied 
in  various  branches  of  research  work.  It  seems  to  be 
that  one  among  the  so-called  "humanistic"  subjects 
which  attracts  the  largest  number  of  students,  a  num- 
ber probably  much  greater  than  that  of  those  who  are 
occupied  with  Greek  and  Latin.  The  methods  of 
teaching  it  and  writing  it  have,  therefore,  presented 
themselves  to  me  as  a  fitting  topic  on  which  to  ad- 
dress to  you  those  remarks  which  you  expect  from  one 
whom  you  have  honoured  by  choosing  him  to  be  your 
Chancellor. 

Eighty  years  ago  there  was  no  teaching  of  the  subject 
in  American  universities  and  practically  none  in 
British.  In  Cambridge  and  in  Oxford  a  professor  was 
allotted  to  it,  but  of  these  two  one  seldom  lectured, 
and  the  other  not  at  all.  In  Scotland  the  universities 

341 


342     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

of  St.  Andrew's,  Glasgow,  and  Aberdeen  provided  no 
historical  teaching,  while  at  Edinburgh  there  was  a 
chair  entitled  that  of  Natural  and  Civil  History, — 
you  may  smile  at  the  title,  but  there  is  a  connection 
between  the  two  departments.  Here  hi  North 
America  the  old  established  college  curriculum  had  no 
room  for  modern  history  and  scarcely  touched  upon 
ancient.  Now,  both  in  British  and  in  American  univer- 
sities, the  study  has  laid  a  strong  hold  upon  the  interest 
of  those  who  in  growing  numbers  resort  thither.  Next 
to  that  educational  revolution  which  has  given  to  the 
sciences  of  nature  their  now  predominant  position  in 
the  University  curriculum,  no  change  has  been  more 
noteworthy.  I  may  therefore  safely  assume  that 
many  of  you  have  followed  with  interest  the  course  of 
recent  discussions  as  to  how  history  should  be  taught 
and  written. 

Before  I  come  to  this  topic,  let  me  offer  one  remark. 
While  admiring  the  untiring  energy  and  patient  care 
with  which  you  teach  American  history  and  investi- 
gate all  its  details,  and  while  desiring  to  express  the 
gratitude  of  British  scholars  for  what  you  have  done 
and  are  doing  for  the  history  of  England,  I  venture  to 
submit  that  scarcely  enough  attention  is  given  either 
here  or  in  Britain  to  the  history  of  the  European 
Continent,  and  above  all  to  ecclesiastical  history, 
which  is  in  a  certain  sense  the  central  stream  of  all 
intellectual  and  social  movement,  from  the  early  days 
of  Christianity  down  to  the  eighteenth  century,  and 


THE  WRITING  AND  TEACHING  OF  HISTORY      343 

which  reveals  to  us  the  working  of  so  many  of  the 
chief  forces  that  have  not  only  affected  politics,  but 
moulded  character  and  conduct  among  Christian 
nations.  Asking  you  to  consider  at  your  leisure  this 
one  suggestion,  I  pass  on  to  a  subject  which  has 
doubtless  already  presented  itself  to  your  minds,  for  it 
has  been  much  discussed  both  here  and  in  Europe. 
It  is  this :  What  do  we  mean  by  the  scientific  treat- 
ment of  history  ?  And  is  history  a  science  ? 

In  its  most  elementary  forms,  history  began  in  some 
countries,  as  in  Egypt  and  among  the  Celtic  peoples, 
with  genealogies  of  chiefs  and  kings;  in  others,  as 
among  the  Norsemen  of  Iceland,  with  tales  of  adven- 
ture describing  the  feats  of  famous  men;  and  again  in 
other  countries,  as  in  Europe  during  the  Dark  Ages, 
with  entries  in  the  rolls  of  monasteries  of  any  events 
which  appeared  specially  remarkable  to  the  monk  who 
acted  as  scribe.  The  picture  records  of  Mexico,  and 
the  ballads  in  which  the  Pacific  Islanders  still  recall 
the  exploits  of  warriors  of  former  days,  would  have 
been  a  basis  for  history  had  the  art  of  writing  been 
known,  just  as  the  Song  of  Deborah  was  an  historical 
source  for  the  early  annals  of  Israel,  and  as  the  ballad 
of  Chevy  Chase  would  have  been  a  similar  source 
did  we  not  possess  more  authentic  records  of  the  fight 
at  Otterburn.  But  historical  composition,  as  a  dis- 
tinct branch  of  literature,  begins  with  the  Greeks,  and 
begins  with  two  famous  writers,  contemporaries  of  the 
great  Athenian  dramatists  and  of  the  greatest  among 


344     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

Greek  lyric  poets.  Herodotus  and  Thucydides  were 
the  models  for  the  Roman  historians  from  the  second 
century  B.C.  onwards,  and  have  been  models  for  the 
civilized  world  ever  since. 

Different  as  these  two  masters  were,  so  different  that 
they  have  been  taken  as  representing  two  dissimilar 
types  of  historical  writing,  they  were  alike  in  possessing 
literary  gifts  of  a  high  order.  In  their  hands  History 
is  fascinating  as  well  as  instructive.  That  character, 
as  a  branch  of  what  used  to  be  called  "polite  letters," 
History  recovered  in  the  days  of  the  Renaissance,  and  in 
that  character  it  was  cultivated  with  special  diligence  in 
the  eighteenth  century  both  on  the  European  continent 
and  in  Britain.  It  was  written  not  so  much  for  the 
sake  of  presenting  an  accurate  record  of  what  had 
happened,  as  with  a  view  to  the  pleasure  or  the  moral 
edification  of  the  reader.  All  possible  pains  were 
taken  to  make  it  attractive  in  style.  It  was  embel- 
lished with  rhetorical  ornaments  and,  especially  in  the 
hands  of  the  less  skilful  artists,  copiously  interspersed 
with  moral  reflections.  For  thirty  years  after  the 
outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution  it  was  treated  by 
English  writers  in  what  might  be  called  a  homiletic 
spirit,  being  used  to  warn  men  against  the  excesses  of 
democracy.  Though  we  had  in  Britain  no  man  who 
could  rank,  in  respect  of  learning  and  services  he  ren- 
dered to  learning,  with  the  Italian  Muratori,  we  had 
great  writers  who  added  to  the  charms  of  a  stately  and 
impressive  style  wide  knowledge  and  vigorous  thought. 


THE  WRITING  AND  TEACHING  OF  HISTORY      345 

Such  were  Gibbon  and  Robertson,  such,  a  generation 
later,  was  Henry  Hallam.  These  men,  while  they 
never  forgot  that  they  were  literary  artists,  felt 
themselves  to  be  also  bound  to  the  utmost  care 
in  the  collection  and  statement  of  their  facts,  and 
devoted  —  one  sees  the  growth  of  the  tendency  in 
Hallam  as  compared  with  his  predecessors  —  more 
and  more  care  to  the  study  of  original  authorities. 
Nevertheless  the  popular  view  that  literary  skill  rather 
than  special  capacity  or  painstaking  investigation  was 
the  quality  which  the  historian  needed  was  illustrated 
by  the  fact  that  so  many  of  the  most  successful  books 
were  written  by  men  who  were  litterateurs  rather  than 
historians.  Hume,  Smollet,  and  Goldsmith,  a  meta- 
physician, a  novelist,  and  a  dramatist,  were  the  popu- 
lar historians  of  their  day.  When,  in  the  next  genera- 
tion, a  history  of  Ireland  was  wanted  for  Lardner's 
Cabinet  Cyclopaedia,  it  was  committed  to  Tom  Moore, 
the  Irish  poet,  who  brought  patriotism  and  imagi- 
nation and  style,  but  little  else,  to  a  singularly  difficult 
task.  So  even  in  Germany,  Schiller,  withdrawn  from 
the  service  of  poetry,  wrote  the  history  of  the  Thirty 
Years'  War.  The  tradition  that  the  historian  must  be 
eloquent  lasted  on  for  another  half  century.  George 
Bancroft  and  even  Motley  marred  the  effect  of  their 
books  by  needless  rhetoric.  The  thoroughness  and 
ingenuity  with  which  E.  A.  Freeman  worked  out  the 
details  of  his  Norman  Conquest  and  his  History  of  Sicily 
would  have  been  more  fully  appreciated  but  for  his 


346     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

tendency  to  grandiloquence.  The  case  of  J.  A.  Froude, 
the  last  of  the  so-called  literary  historians,  is  not  quite 
the  same.  The  others  whom  I  have  just  named  were 
solid,  hard-working,  conscientious  scholars;  Froude 
was  a  brilliant  stylist,  who  had  begun  his  career  as  a 
writer  of  stories,  and  chose  thereafter  to  display  in  the 
field  of  history  his  gift  of  picturesque  narration.  His 
ecclesiastical  partisanship  was  usually  evident  enough 
to  enable  a  reader  to  discount  it.  A  graver  fault  was 
that  superb  indifference  to  truth  which  sometimes  led 
him  to  regard  the  facts  he  had  to  deal  with  chiefly  as 
so  much  material  to  be  handled  with  a  view  to  artistic 
effect,  putting  on  them  such  colouring  as  was  needed 
to  secure  the  particular  effect  desired,  and  caring  little 
for  accuracy  in  details  which  did  not  move  his 
curiosity. 

A  new  spirit,  however,  had  already  been  at  work  in 
France  and  Germany,  and  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  it  had  begun  to  show  itself  in  Great  Brit- 
ain also.  The  same  intellectual  movement  which  had 
been  producing  discoveries  in  the  field  of  physics  and 
chemistry,  and  was  soon  to  produce  discoveries  in  those 
of  geology  and  biology,  revealed  itself  in  the  students  of 
philology,  economics,  and  history.  The  half  century 
which  covers  Benjamin  Franklin  and  Joseph  Priestley 
and  Saussure  and  Cuvier  and  Humboldt  covers  also 
the  publication  of  F.  A.  Wolf's  famous  Prolegomena  to 
Homer,  a  period  in  which  new  critical  methods  began 
to  be  applied  by  other  scholars,  as  by  Michaelis,  to  the 


THE  WRITING  AND   TEACHING  OF   HISTORY      347 

primitive  literature  and  early  records  of  other  peoples 
also.  Even  earlier  they  had  been  applied  by  Beaufort 
to  Roman  history.  Niebuhr  in  Germany  and  Guizot 
in  France  were  in  the  nineteenth  century  among  the 
first  leaders  of  a  new  school  who  showed  that  they  cared 
more  for  the  substance  than  for  the  form  of  their  his- 
torical writing,  though  both  of  them  had  the  force  and 
finish  which  belong  to  powerful  minds,  Niebuhr  bold 
and  brilliant  in  his  suggestions,  Guizot,  lucid,  acute, 
and  delicate  in  his  handling  of  details.  The  men  of 
this  school  flung  themselves  into  the  investigation 
of  the  sources  of  history  with  an  ardour  and  assiduity 
which  in  earlier  days  had  been  sometimes  displayed 
by  patient  and  leisurely  workers  like  the  Benedictines 
in  France  or  the  Magdeburg  Centuriators  in  Germany, 
but  seldom  by  persons  in  the  front  rank  either  of 
teachers  or  of  writers  known  to  the  world  at  large. 
Strict  critical  methods  now  began  to  be  generally 
applied  to  the  original  contemporaneous  authorities. 
Public  and  private  archives  and  collections  of  books 
or  documents  were  ransacked  for  new  materials. 
Manuscripts  were  collated,  edited,  published  in 
such  a  series  as  that  of  the  Recueil  des  Historiens 
in  France  or  that  of  the  Monumenta  Histories 
Germanica  in  Germany.  All  the  old  views  were 
reexamined;  many  old  fables  or  misconceptions  were 
exploded.  For  the  loose  phrases  and  flowing  periods 
of  the  school  of  "literary  historians"  there  was  sub- 
stituted an  exact  and  precise  setting  forth  of  what 


348     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

could  be  ascertained  from  the  sources,  showing  how 
much  was  certain,  how  much  doubtful,  and  how  far 
different  sources  agreed  with  or  contradicted  one 
another.  In  the  earlier  stages  of  the  movement  the 
more  daring  spirits  attempted  to  reconstruct  .the  more 
distant  and  darker  periods  of  history  from  data  which  we 
should  now  think  too  slender,  and  the  tendency  during 
the  last  thirty  years  has  been  to  discourage  efforts  to 
rewrite  the  annals  of  a  people  in  the  light  of  any  theory, 
however  plausible,  and  to  be  content  with  setting  out 
all  that  can  be  known,  leaving  the  student  to  make  the 
best  of  it.  Ranke  and  Mommsen  are,  in  respect  of 
their  immense  productive  power  and  massive  learning, 
the  most  illustrious  representatives  of  this  school,  but 
in  our  language,  we  may  point  to  William  Stubbs,  to 
E.  A.  Freeman,  to  Francis  Parkman,  to  Samuel  R. 
Gardiner,  and  to  F.  W.  Maitland  as  instances  of  the 
way  in  which  scholars  writing  in  English  have 
absorbed  and  exemplified  its  methods. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  this  change  in  the  way  of 
handling  history  is  due  to  the  influence  of  the  sciences 
of  nature  upon  the  minds  of  all  classes  of  educated 
men.  Doubtless  the  rapid  advance  of  those  sciences 
through  the  application  of  their  exact  experimental 
methods  has  helped  to  strengthen  among  all  kinds  of 
investigators  a  sense  of  the  importance  of  precision, 
accuracy,  and  caution  in  inference.  Nevertheless  it 
will  be  seen,  if  the  progress  of  the  humanistic  studies  is 
carefully  examined,  that  the  new  tendencies  which  have 


THE  WRITING  AND   TEACHING  OF  HISTORY      349 

come  to  pervade  the  latter  are  not  a  result  of  the  ad- 
vance of  the  physical  sciences,  but  rather  part  of  a 
parallel  and  independent  though  cognate  change  in  the 
intellectual  tendencies  and  habits  of  mankind.  The 
beginning  of  a  critical  examination  of  ancient  docu- 
ments may  be  found  in  Spinoza,  who  was  a  con- 
temporary of  the  group  of  Englishmen  that  founded 
the  Royal  Society.  The  employment  of  exact  methods 
in  historical  investigation  was  visible  in  modern 
Europe  almost  as  soon  as  was  the  adoption  of 
experimental  methods  in  physical  science.  Nor  was 
this  critically  exact  spirit  a  wholly  new  thing.  One 
sees  it  emerging  from  time  to  time  in  superior  minds 
as  far  back  as  Thucydides  and  Aristotle. 

Not  only  in  Germany,  France,  and  Italy,  but  also  in 
Britain  and  the  United  States  the  best  men  had  been 
writing  history  in  a  genuinely  scientific  way  before 
the  term  "scientific  history"  began  to  be  used  as  a 
technical  expression  somewhere  about  the  year  1880. 
If  that  term  be  taken  to  denote  the  systematic 
application  of  strict  tests  to  evidence  and  a  single- 
minded  devotion  to  the  ascertainment  and  the  state- 
ment of  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  then  all 
will  agree  that  it  is  an  entirely  laudable  ideal,  and  that 
whoever  gives  us  a  history  which  is  scientific  in  this 
sense,  whatever  else  he  gives  or  fails  to  give,  renders  a 
real  service. 

The  term  seems,  however,  to  be  taken  as  connoting 
some  negative  as  well  as  some  positive  qualities.  The 


350     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

"scientific"  historian  must,  it  seems  to  be  supposed, 
renounce  all  literary  graces  and  aim  at  dryness.  His 
style  is  to  be  plain  and  bald.  Not  only  ornament, 
but  anything  which  can  rouse  emotion  or  appeal  to 
imagination  is  to  be  eschewed,  for  that  way  danger  lies. 
Romantic  incidents  and  dramatic  scenes  are  to  be 
excluded,  or  told  in  a  business-like  or  even  prosaic 
way,  lest  the  reader  be  diverted  from  the  succession  of 
more  important  events;  nor  are  any  moral  judgments 
to  be  pronounced. 

Our  distinguished  English  authority,  the  late  Pro- 
fessor Seeley,  himself  a  writer  of  singular  force,  with 
a  power  of  making  his  points  tell  which  the  most 
accomplished  forensic  advocate  might  have  envied,  went 
so  far  as  to  declare  that  in  order  to  be  scientifically 
valuable,  history  must  be  dull  or  dry. 

.Considered  as  a  reaction  against  the  habit  of  treat- 
ing history  as  a  part  of  polite  letters,  against  the 
superabundant  rhetoric  of  Bancroft  and  the  pic- 
turesque carelessness  of  Froude,  this  view  was  a  legiti- 
mate reaction.  It  suited  the  practical  and  business-like 
spirit  of  our  time,  and  has  been  generally  accepted  by 
the  present  generation.  The  truth  of  the  facts  is  no 
doubt  far  more  important  than  any  of  the  embellish- 
ments which  literary  skill  can  add  to  a  narrative,  and 
if  the  embellishments  begin  to  be  seductive,  cast  them 
away.  Excellent  opportunities  for  working  on  these 
lines  were  afforded  by  such  large  cooperative  under- 
takings as  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography 


THE  WRITING  AND  TEACHING  OF  HISTORY      351 

and  the  Cambridge  Modern  History,  for  as  in  these 
compression  was  of  the  first  importance,  ornament  was 
very  properly  discarded.  I  remember  how  at  a  public 
dinner  given  to  celebrate  the  completion  of  the  former 
book,  one  speaker,  deservedly  popular  among  the 
literary  figures  of  London,  delighted  the  audience  by 
observing  that  the  maxim  of  the  editors  of  that 
stupendous  work  had  been,  "No  flowers,  by  request." 

The  precept  that  style  need  not  be  regarded  has  the 
advantage  of  being  easy  to  follow,  easier  than  most  of 
the  counsels  of  asceticism.  If  the  road  into  the 
gardens  of  historic  truth  leads  through  the  realm  of 
dulness,  all  may  traverse  the  first  part  of  it.  We  can 
all  of  us  be  heavy,  or  slipshod,  or  merely  level  and 
monotonous.  And  doubtless  it  is  better  to  be  tedious 
and  monotonous  and  dreary  almost  up  to  the  verge 
of  unreadability  than  that  our  facts  should  be  wrong 
or  that  such  of  them  as  are  right  should  be  smothered 
under  festoons  of  florid  verbiage.  A  somewhat  tedious 
history  like  Guicciardini's,  or  a  level  and  rather  arid  one 
like  Lingard's,  is  serviceable  in  spite  of  its  tameness. 
But  aridity  raises  no  presumption  of  accuracy.  There 
is  no  necessary  or  natural  connection  between  the  two 
things,  and  accuracy  may  be  just  as  well  combined 
with  animation.  The  things  that  have  actually  hap- 
pened are  as  interesting  as  the  things  that  might  have 
happened,  but  did  not,  just  as  picturesque,  just  as  well 
fitted  to  touch  imagination  and  appeal  to  sentiment. 
That  some  writers  have,  in  their  desire  to  produce 


352     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

literary  effect,  forgotten  that  their  first  devotion  was 
due  to  truth,  is  a  reason  not  for  despising  literary 
effect,  but  for  relegating  it  to  the  second  place. 

There  are  instances  enough  more  recent  than  those 
of  Gibbon  and  Robertson,  already  noted,  not  to  speak 
of  Thomas  Carlyle,  to  show  that  there  is  no  incom- 
patibility between  scientific  and  literary  treatment. 
Macaulay's  amazing  force  and  brilliance  have  drawn, 
and  continue  to  draw,  thousands  of  people  to  his  pages 
who  would  have  been  attracted  by  no  one  with  a 
less  fascinating  style.  But  though  his  eminence  and 
pronounced  political  views  exposed  him  in  his  lifetime 
to  a  captiously  minute  and  rather  niggling  criticism, 
his  work  has,  take  it  all  in  all,  stood  the  test  of 
time  as  an  authority.  Lord  Acton,  one  of  the  most 
accurate  as  well  as  the  most  learned  of  recent  English 
historians,  though  sometimes  obscure  from  the  very- 
pregnancy  of  his  thought,  lit  up  his  narrative  with 
epigrammatic  wisdom,  and,  more  rarely,  with  descrip- 
tions of  concentrated  glow.  The  style  of  Henry  C. 
Lea,  the  most  learned  as  well  as  among  the  most 
accurate  of  recent  American  historical  writers,  though 
no  doubt  always  plain  and  level,  is  always  agreeable, 
because  he  knew  how  to  select  from  the  vast  material 
at  his  command  what  was  most  illuminative.  He  has 
always  something  interesting  to  tell,  and  he  tells  it 
with  lucid  simplicity.  Francis  Parkman's  laborious 
researches  did  not  wither  the  freshness  of  his  mind. 
John  Richard  Green,  though  sometimes  heedless  in 


THE  WRITING  AND  TEACHING  OF  HISTORY      353 

small  things,  was  in  essential  matters  a  sound  and 
trustworthy  writer,  against  whom  few  serious  errors 
have  ever  been  proved,  yet  his  Short  History 
of  England  is  confessedly  as  fascinating  as  any 
novel. 

Thucydides  himself,  the  greatest  of  them  all,  the 
model  of  exactness  and  thoroughness  hi  his  treatment 
of  the  events  of  his  time,  Thucydides  has  given  us 
narrative  passages  like  that  describing  the  retreat  of 
the  Athenian  army  from  Syracuse,  where  every  sentence 
is  charged  with  dramatic  force,  and  reflective  passages 
which  stir  the  depths  of  thought  now  as  they  did 
twenty-four  centuries  ago.  There  is  no  ornament  in 
his  writing,  but  there  is  not  a  dull  page. 

May  not  our  friends  of  the  neo-scientific  school — those 
whom  Walter  Scott  and  after  him  Carlyle  would  have 
called  the  Dryasdusts  —  sometimes  forget  that  history 
has  to  be  written  not  only  for  historical  students  who 
bring  their  interest  with  them,  so  that  the  dry  bones 
are  all  they  need,  but  also  for  those  who  bring  no 
such  special  interest,  and  who  will  be  repelled  by  an 
unattractive  treatment  of  the  theme  ?  That  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  past  should  be  more  generally  diffused 
through  the  whole  community,  that  the  past  should  be 
made  to  live  as  something  real  in  their  minds,  that  it 
should  help  to  form  their  tastes  and  enlarge  their 
horizons,  is  an  object  worth  working  for.  Anything 
can  be  made  dull  or  lively  by  the  way  in  which  it  is 
told,  and  history  more  easily  than  most  subjects, 

2A 


354     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

because  there  are  no  difficulties  of  technical  termi- 
nology to  overcome. 

When  we  pronounce  a  book  of  history  dull,  why 
do  we  find  it  so?  Is  it  not  because  the  leading 
characters  are  not  individualized,  because  the  salient 
facts  are  not  brought  into  due  relief,  because  the  dra- 
matic situations  are  missed,  because  the  style  does 
not  rise  or  fall  in  sympathy  with  the  significance  of  the 
events  and  their  emotions  they  evoke  ?  The  avoidance 
of  these  defects,  so  far  from  injuring  the  truth  and 
precision  of  a  record,  will  make  it  more  vivid  and  more 
readily  remembered  by  the  special  student  as  well 
as  the  lay  reader. 

Another  school  has  arisen  of  late  years  which  also 
claims  the  name  of  Scientific,  and  its  pretensions 
have  made  so  much  noise  both  in  Europe  and  here 
as  to  require  some  consideration.  This  school  seeks 
to  raise,  or  reduce,  history  to  the  level  of  an  exact 
science  like  those  which  deal  with  various  departments 
of  physical  enquiry.  Conceiving  that  only  through  at- 
taining an  exactitude  like  theirs  can  history  have  any 
real  value,  it  ignores  the  individual,  it  regards  the  course 
of  human  affairs  as  determined  by  general  laws  which 
govern  the  action  of  men  associated  in  communities, 
much  as  the  so-called  "laws  of  nature"  govern  the  in- 
animate and  animate  external  world.  From  a  study  of 
racial  characteristics,  intellectual  tendencies,  and  the 
play  of  economic  interests,  this  school  believes  itself  able 
to  discover  such  laws,  and  it  expounds  them  in  elaborate 


THE  WRITING  AND  TEACHING  OF  HISTORY      355 

formulae,  purporting  to  sum  up  the  past,  to  explain  the 
present,  to  predict  (perhaps  less  positively)  the  future. 
The  objection  to  this  method  and  procedure  as  we 
see  it  practised  by  the  votaries  of  this  school  is  that  it 
is  not  scientific.  Nothing  accords  less  with  scientific 
principles  than  to  treat  as  similar  things  essentially 
dissimilar.  Now  the  phenomena  of  human  society 
which  history  deals  with  are  altogether  unlike  the 
phenomena  of  external  nature,  indeed,  so  unlike  as  to 
suggest  that  the  methods  fit  for  the  one  can  hardly  be 
fit  for  the  other,  or  at  any  rate  cannot  promise  like 
results.  Oxygen  and  hydrogen  behave  in  the  same 
way  in  all  countries.  Their  properties  were,  so  far  as 
we  know,  the  same  ten  thousand  years  ago  as  they  are 
now,  and  are  apparently  the  same  here  on  our  earth 
as  they  are  in  the  sun  and  the  other  stars.  But  the 
features  of  human  society  are  wholly  different  in 
different  races  and  different  countries.  Even  in  the 
same  countries  they  were  a  thousand  years  ago  unlike 
what  they  are  now.  Their  study  is  for  this  and  other 
reasons  incomparably  more  difficult  than  is  the  study 
of  natural  phenomena.  No  scrutiny  we  can  apply  to 
them  can  possibly  be  exhaustive,  nor  can  those 
methods  of  counting,  measuring  and  weighing  by  which 
exactitude  is  secured  in  chemistry  and  physics  be 
employed.  Most  observers  are  prone,  since  they 
cannot  possibly  exhaust  the  facts,  to  fix  their  atten- 
tion on,  and  give  prominence  to,  those  facts  which 
happen  to  fit  in  with  their  preconceived  notions,  and 


356     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

use  them  to  support  the  broad  generalizations  they 
seek  to  draw.  Many  a  man,  when  he  has  gone  a 
little  way  into  a  subject,  thinks  it  easy  to  sum  up  in  a 
generalization  the  facts  he  sees.  No  habit  is  more 
seductive.  But  it  is  a  dangerous  habit,  because  ample 
knowledge  and  an  experience  that  engenders  caution 
are  needed  to  recognize  the  pitfalls  that  lie  round  the 
enquirer's  path.  So  one  may  say  that  the  longer  a 
man  studies  either  a  given  country  or  a  given  period,  the 
fewer,  the  more  cautious,  and  the  more  carefully  limited 
and  guarded  in  statement  will  his  generalizations  be. 
Some  fifty  years  ago  the  late  Mr.  H.  T.  Buckle 
published  a  book  entitled  a  History  of  Civilization. 
Its  vigorous  style  and  bold  generalizations  gave  it 
popularity  at  the  tune.  But  though  Buckle  had  read 
widely  and  done  a  good  deal  of  thinking,  his  knowledge 
was  altogether  insufficient  to  qualify  him  for  the  task 
he  was  attempting,  and  he  had  not  been  trained  to 
apply  adequate  criticism  to  the  authorities  he 
used.  There  were  in  the  book  some  true  things 
forcibly  stated  and  fitted  to  stimulate  reflection,  but 
it  made  no  really  important  contribution  to  knowl- 
edge ;  and  some  of  his  generalizations,  as  for  instance 
the  well-known  parallel  between  Scotland  and  Spain, 
were  ludicrous.  Of  most  of  the  other  writers  who 
have  followed  in  the  same  path  much  the  same  may 
be  said.  The  foundations  have  been  weak,  so  the 
structures  of  ambitious  theory  raised  upon  them  have 
been  flimsy  and  unstable.  These  writers  have  seldom 


THE  WRITING  AND  TEACHING  OF  HISTORY      357 

realized  the  extreme  complexity  of  the  data  to  be 
dealt  with,  the  number  of  the  hidden  forces  at  work, 
the  variability  of  human  beings  under  different  condi- 
tions, the  important  part  played  by  individual  men 
whose  appearance  has  disturbed  all  calculations  and 
overthrown  all  predictions. 

Suppose  that  a  philosopher  had  hi  the  middle  of  the 
second  century  of  our  era  addressed  himself  to  the  task 
of  writing  a  history  of  civilization  and  moral  progress. 
He  would  have  had  nearly  nine  centuries  of  tolerably 
authentic  history  behind  him,  a  period  as  long  as  that 
which  separates  us  from  Pope  Gregory  the  Seventh 
and  William  the  Conqueror,  and  he  might  have  pleased 
himself  by  drawing  out  and  dedicating  to  the  Em- 
peror Marcus  Aurelius,  as  a  monarch  of  philosophic 
tastes,  a  generalized  statement  of  the  laws  governing 
human  development  which,  being  proved  from  an 
observation  of  the  past,  would  evidently  continue  to 
determine  human  progress  in  the  centuries  to  come. 
The  materials  might  have  seemed  abundant,  and  the 
interpretation  of  the  causes  of  progress  a  simple 
matter.  But  our  philosopher  would  have  left  out  of 
account  the  two  factors  which 'were  destined  to  have 
most  influence  on  that  progress,  —  Christianity,  which 
the  Emperor  was  trying  to  repress  as  a  dangerous 
secret  society,  and  the  barbarian  foes  of  civilization 
with  whom  he  was  warring  on  the  Danube. 

The  more  recent  writers  of  this  school  —  its  Cory- 
phaeus was  the  late  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  but  it  has 


358     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

representatives  in  Continental  Europe  also  —  have 
not  (so  far  as  I  know)  contributed  to  history  either 
any  sound  theories,  or  any  illuminative  suggestions 
which  competent  historians  did  not  know  already, 
and  did  not  know  better,  because  they  were  known 
as  the  result  of  a  wide  and  critical  mastery  of 
details.  What  the  school  has  given  is  a  mass  of  general 
propositions  couched  in  what  sounds  like  scientific 
language,  but  the  contents  and  substance  of  which  are 
either  threadbare  truths  so  dressed  up  in  solemn 
phraseology  as  to  appear  to  be  novelties,  or  theories 
too  vague  and  abstract  to  be  serviceable  either  as 
interpretations  or  as  summaries  of  the  facts.  Some- 
tunes  the  propositions  are  not  true  as  stated,  i.e.  they 
contain  a  germ  of  truth,  but  are  misleading  unless 
many  qualifications  be  added.  This  faith  in  phrases 
and  formulae  is  an  instance  of  that  recurring  pro- 
pensity of  the  human  mind  to  impose  upon  facts  in 
general  its  own  notions  drawn  from  a  few  facts 
hastily  gathered,  —  notions  which  gain  authority  from 
being  clothed  in  elaborate  pseudo-technical  termi- 
nology. It  was  a  like  propensity  which  in  the  Middle 
Ages  retarded  the  progress  of  the  sciences  of  nature 
by  embodying  crude  conceptions  of  phenomena  in 
terms  and  theories  to  which  there  was  nothing  cor- 
responding in  reality,  as  when  men  talked  about 
"phlogiston"  and  "animal  spirits"  and  thought  they 
had  explained  things  by  saying  that  "nature  abhors 


THE  WRITING  AND  TEACHING  OF  HISTORY      359 

Mr.  Spencer  was  a  most  painstaking  and  earnest 
thinker,  and  the  efforts  of  his  school  to  impress 
upon  their  contemporaries  the  value  of  an  arrange- 
ment and  synthesis  of  knowledge  deserve  all  recogni- 
tion. Of  what  services  the  school  has  rendered  to 
subjects  other  than  history  I  will  not  venture  to 
speak,  but  as  respects  the  results  attained  in  history 
and  subjects  cognate  thereto,  the  view  I  have  tried  to 
convey  to  you  is,  I  believe,  that  pretty  generally  held 
by  historical  students  both  here  and  in  England. 
Perhaps  the  disappointment  one  feels  in  perusing 
books  where  one  seeks  for  bread  and  seems  to  receive 
only  stones  may  perhaps  bias  those  of  us  who  were 
trained  in  another  school.  Judge  therefore  for  your- 
selves and  see  if  you  can  extract  new  and  profit- 
able truths  where  we  have  not  been  able  to  discover 
them. 

Needless  to  say  that  every  historical  scholar 
recognizes  that  there  are  certain  general  principles 
to  be  applied  to  the  investigation  of  human  society 
and  to  the  elucidation  of  the  forces  by  which  the 
institutions  and  arts  of  life  have  advanced,  and 
reognizes  also  that  though  the  movement  which 
has  made  history  more  scientific  had  an  independent 
origin,  the  historian  may  profit  by  a  knowledge  of  the 
methods  employed  in  the  sciences  of  nature.  In  the 
first  place  there  is  to  be  studied  Human  Nature  itself, 
which  presents  certain  fundamental  qualities  and  habits 
present  in  all  more  or  less  civilized  communities,  quali- 


360     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

ties  whose  existence  we  may  everywhere  assume  as  social 
factors.  These  factors  are  in  their  outlines  familiar 
to  us  all.  They  have  been  dwelt  upon  by  philosophers 
and  historians  from  Plato  downwards.  They  do 
furnish  a  basis  for  what  may  be  called  a  general  treat- 
ment of  political  and  social  institutions,  but  it  is  only 
a  basis,  because  the  phenomena  differ  so  much  accord- 
ing to  race  and  environment  that  the  general  propo- 
sitions we  can  lay  down  as  positive  and  practically 
certain  are  but  few. 

Secondly,  there  are  certain  general  tendencies  which 
can  be  traced  through  the  annals  of  mankind,  certain 
lines  along  which  human  progress  has  moved.  To  dis- 
cover and  trace  and  illustrate  these  is  the  province  of 
what  is  usually  called  the  Philosophy  of  History,  a 
subject  with  which  some  famous  writers  have  dealt, 
beginning  with  the  Arab  Ibn  Khaldun,  and  coming 
down  through  the  Italian  Vico  to  the  German  Hegel. 
There  is  no  branch  of  historical  enquiry  that  better 
deserves  your  thoughts.  But  it  is  more  modest  in  its 
pretensions  than  is  the  school  of  Buckle  and  Spencer, 
for  it  does  not  attempt  to  lay  down  general  proposi- 
tions about  all  men  and  all  communities,  but  only  to 
explain  the  past  by  showing  what  were  the  most 
potent  forces  and  tendencies  at  work,  and  how  the 
growth  of  the  human  mind  expressed  itself  in  the 
moulding  and  perfecting  of  institutions. 

The  facts  which  History  presents  chronologically 
may  also  be  treated  as  materials  for  a  systematic 


THE  WRITING  AND  TEACHING  OF  HISTORY      361 

study  of  any  special  branch  of  human  activity,  just  as 
the  events  in  the  annals  of  the  Greeks  recorded  by 
Herodotus,  Thucydides,  Xenophon,  and  others  may  be 
used  for  a  treatise,  like  that  of  Aristotle,  concerning 
Greek  politics.  History  may  hand  over  the  phenom- 
ena she  records  to  be  made  the  basis  of  books  on 
political  science,  or  economic  science,  or  what  is  called 
Sociology,  in  which  the  phenomena  are  arranged  and 
analyzed,  and  are  so  correlated  and  explained  as  to 
enable  us  to  draw  from  them  general  conclusions. 
But  the  materials  belong  to  History.  It  is  she  that 
has  gathered  them.  It  is  to  her  that  he  who  would 
handle  them  systematically  must  go  in  order  to  know 
the  authenticity  and  the  value  of  each  part  of  them. 

Let  me  try  to  sum  up  as  follows  what  I  have  sought 
to  convey  to  you. 

There  is  no  incompatibility  between  the  scientific 
treatment  and  the  literary  treatment  of  history.  Un- 
due attention  to  the  latter  will  tend  to  make  a  writer 
less  accurate  and  thorough  in  investigation,  just  as 
complete  absorption  in  the  investigation  of  facts  will 
tend  to  make  his  presentation  of  the  facts  less  attrac- 
tive. But  there  is  nothing  to-day,  any  more  than  in 
bygone  days,  to  prevent  him  from  being  both  a  careful 
investigator  and  an  agreeable  writer.  As  between 
Lingard  and  Froude,  choose  Lingard,  but  the  combina- 
tion of  qualities  which  you  have  in  Macaulay  or 
Green  or  Parkman  or  Lea  is  better  than  either.  No 
historians  were  more  accurate  and  exact  than  Ranke 


362      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

and  Mommsen,  but  every  page  in  the  writings  of  both 
has  a  literary  quality. 

There  is  no  incompatibility  between  the  use  of 
critical  methods  and  a  careful  study  of  details  on  the 
one  hand  and  a  grasp  of  broad  general  principles  on 
the  other.  Rather  is  it  true  that  the  man  who  knows 
the  details  best  is  also  the  fittest  to  educe  and  explain 
the  general  principles.  Many  a  student  can  master  the 
details  who  cannot  expound  the  principles,  but  the 
man  of  wide  grasp  is  always  the  better  for  knowing 
the  details  also,  for  in  them  lies  Reality. 

That  which  is  misleading  and  unfruitful  is  the  ten- 
dency to  disjoin  the  mastery  of  details  from  the  so- 
called  "  sociological "  study  of  general  principles,  i.e.  to 
think  you  can  have  the  latter  without  the  former. 
To  re-create  any  period  of  the  Past  for  our  own  minds, 
to  understand  it  as  it  was,  unlike  what  went  before  it, 
unlike  what  came  after  it,  —  this  is  the  chief  aim  of 
history,  and  for  this  purpose  one  must  study  not  only 
the  masses  of  men  but  also  individual  men,  their  ideas 
and  beliefs,  their  enjoyments  and  aspirations.  Espe- 
cially important  is  it  for  any  one  who  would  explain 
the  course  of  events  that  he  should  understand  those 
individuals  who  by  force  of  thought  or  will  dominated 
their  own  time  and  turned  the  course  of  events.  Not 
only  has  the  study  of  striking  figures  the  greatest 
fascination  for  the  ordinary  reader  as  well  as  the 
student,  it  has  also  an  importance  for  the  compre- 
hension of  events  which  the  Buckle  and  Spencer 


THE  WRITING  AND  TEACHING  OF  HISTORY      363 

school  do  not  seem  to  realize.  The  individual  doubt- 
less counts  for  less  to-day  in  most  countries  than  he 
did  in  either  the  republics  or  the  monarchies  of  the 
past.  But  if  you  wish  to  realize  how  much  he  still 
counts  for,  think  of  how  different  Europe  would  have 
been  to-day  had  there  been  no  Napoleon  Bonaparte, 
no  Mazzini,  no  Cavour,  no  Bismarck ;  or  what  it 
would  have  meant  in  your  Revolutionary  War  if 
Clive,  who  died  in  1774,  had  lived  to  lead  the  troops  of 
George  the  Third  and  there  had  been  no  Washington 
to  oppose  him,  or  how  different  the  course  of  events 
in  the  Civil  War  if  Seward  instead  of  Lincoln  had  been 
nominated  at  Chicago  for  the  Presidency. 

The  writer  or  teacher  of  history  begins  by  a 
critical  investigation  of  the  facts.  This  is  science,  and 
one  of  the  most  difficult  branches  of  science.  When 
you  have  ascertained  the  facts  so  far  as  ascertainable, 
try  to  connect  them  and  arrange  them  in  the  order 
of  their  importance  and  educe  general  conclusions 
from  them.  This  also  is  science.  Then  set  them  forth 
in  the  best  order  and  the  best  words  you  can  find. 
This  is  literature.  Literary  skill  crowns  the  work,  and 
makes  it  more  useful  because  it  makes  the  work 
spread  farther,  and  better  accomplish  its  end.  But  it 
is  worthless  if  the  two  other  processes  have  not  gone 
before. 

For  the  highest  kind  of  historical  work  four  gifts 
are  needed;  unwearied  diligence  in  investigation,  a 
penetrating  judgment  which  can  fasten  on  the  more 


364     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

essential  points,  an  imagination  which  can  vivify  the 
past,  and  that  power  over  language  which  we  call 
Style.  So  the  greatest  historians  have  been  those  who 
combined  a  wide  sweep  of  vision  with  a  thorough 
mastery  of  details,  and  who  have  known  how  to  set 
forth  both  the  details  and  the  principles  in  a  way 
which  makes  them  enrich  the  reader's  thought,  touch 
his  emotions,  and  live  in  his  memory. 


SOME  HINTS   ON   READING 

ADDRESS  TO  THE  STUDENTS  OF  RUTGERS  (FORMERLY  QUEEN'S) 
COLLEGE,  NEW  JERSEY,  OCTOBER,  1911. 


SOME  HINTS  ON  READING 

i 
ADDRESS  TO  THE  STUDENTS  OF  RUTGERS  (FORMERLY  QUEEN'S) 

COLLEGE,  NEW  JERSEY,  OCTOBER,  1911. 

IT  has  been  often  said  that  books  do  for  us  to-day 
what  universities  did  in  earlier  ages.  The  knowledge 
that  could  five  centuries  ago  have  been  obtained  only 
from  the  lips  of  a  teacher,  can  now  be  gathered  from  the 
printed  page.  Nevertheless,  since  it  is  only  the  most 
active  and  most  diligent  and  most  discerning  minds 
that  can  dispense  with  the  help  and  guidance  of  teachers 
to  show  them  what  to  read  and  how  to  read,  univer- 
sities and  colleges  are  scarcely  less  useful  if  not  quite 
so  indispensable  to-day  as  they  were  before  the  inven- 
tion of  printing.  It  is,  therefore,  not  unfitting  that  in 
your  college  I  should  be  asked  to  talk  to  you  about 
books,  the  way  to  choose  them,  and  the  way  to  draw 
most  profit  from  them.  The  very  abundance  of  books 
in  our  days  —  a  stupefying  and  terrifying  abundance  — 
has  made  it  more  important  to  know  how  to  choose 
promptly  and  judiciously  among  them  if  one  is  not  to 
spend  as  much  time  in  the  mere  choice  as  in  the  use. 
Here  you  have  the  help  of  your  professors.  But  here 
you  are  only  beginning  the  process  of  education  which 
will  go  on  during  the  rest  of  your  life.  By  far  the 

367 


368      UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

largest  part  of  that  process  will,  after  you  have  left 
college,  consist  in  your  independent  reading,  so  the 
sooner  you  form  habits  of  choice  and  methods  of  use, 
the  better. 

The  first  piece  of  advice  I  will  venture  to  give  you 
is  this :  Read  only  ,  the  best  books.  There  are 
plenty  of  them,  far  more  than  you  will  ever  find  time 
to  read,  and  when  they  are  to  be  had  it  is  a  pity  to 
waste  time  on  any  others. 

You  may  ask  what  I  mean  by  the  Best  books. 
Passing  by  for  the  moment  those  which  in  each  of 
the  great  world-languages  we  call  its  classics,  for  to 
these  we  shall  return  presently,  I  mean  by  the  Best 
those  from  which  you  receive  most,  and  can  carry 
most  away,  in  the  form  either  of  knowledge  or  of 
stimulation.  When  you  want  to  learn  something 
about  a  subject,  do  not  fall  upon  the  first  book 
which  you  have  heard  named  or  which  professes 
by  its  title  to  deal  with  that  subject.  Consult  your 
teacher,  or  any  well-read  friend,  or  the  librarian  of 
the  nearest  public  library.  (One  of  the  greatest  services 
public  libraries  render  is  that  they  provide  librarians 
usually  competent,  and  I  believe  always  willing,  to 
advise  those  who  apply  to  them.)  Be  content  with 
nothing  less  than  the  very  best  you  can  get.  Time 
will  be  saved  in  the  end. 

There  is  no  waste  more  pitiable  than  that  so  often 
seen  when  some  zealous  student  has,  for  want  of 
guidance,  spent  weeks  or  months  of  toil  in  trying  to 


SOME  HINTS  ON  READING  369 

obtain  from  a  second-  or  third-rate  book  what  he 
might  have  found  sooner  and  better  in  a  first-rate  one. 
So  try  to  read  only  what  is  good.  And  by  "good" 
you  will  not  suppose  me  to  mean  what  used  to  be 
called  "improving  books,"  books  written  hi  a  sort  of 
Sunday  School  spirit  for  the  moral  benefit  of  the 
reader.  A  book  may  be  excellent  hi  its  ethical  tone, 
and  full  of  solid  information,  and  yet  be  unprofitable, 
that  is  to  say,  dull,  heavy,  uninspiring,  wearisome. 
Contrariwise,  a  book  is  good  when  it  is  bright  and 
fresh,  when  it  rouses  and  enlivens  the  mind,  when 
it  provides  materials  on  which  the  mind  can  pleasur- 
ably  work,  when  it  leaves  the  reader  not  only  knowing 
more  but  better  able  to  use  the  knowledge  he  has 
received  from  it. 

Seventy  years  ago  people,  or  at  least  those  who  used 
then  to  be  called  the  preceptors  of  youth,  talked  as  if  there 
lay  a  certain  virtue  in  dry  books,  or  at  any  rate  a  moral 
merit  in  the  process  of  plodding  through  them.  It 
was  a  dismal  mistake,  which  inflicted  upon  youth  many 
a  dreary  hour.  The  dull  book  is  not  better  than  the 
lively  book.  Other  things  being  equal,  it  is  worse,  be- 
cause it  requires  more  expenditure  of  effort  to  master 
such  of  its  contents  as  are  worth  remembering.  If  the 
edge  of  the  tool  is  blunt,  one  must  put  forth  more 
strength,  and  as  there  is  never  too  much  strength,  none 
of  it  should  be  wasted.  It  may  be  asked,  "But  is  not 
the  mental  discipline  wholesome  ?  "  Yes,  effort  crowned 
with  victory  is  a  fine  thing,  but  since  there  is  plenty  of 


370     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

such  discipline  to  be  had  from  the  better  books  why  go 
to  the  worse  books  for  it  ? 

Sometimes  it  happens  that  what  you  want  to  learn  can- 
not be  had  except  from  dry  or  even  from  dull  treatises. 
Dryness  and  duhiess  are  not  the  same  thing,  for  the 
former  quality  may  be  due  to  the  nature  of  the  subject, 
but  the  latter  is  the  fault  of  the  author.  Well,  if  there 
is  no  other  book  to  be  found,  you  must  make  the  best 
of  the  dry  and  even  of  the  dull.  But  first  make  quite 
sure  that  there  are  none  better  to  be  had,  for  though  in 
many  a  subject  the  really  satisfactory  book  has  not  yet 
been  written,  still  in  most  subjects  there  is  a  large  choice 
between  the  better  and  the  worse. 

Every  book  ought  to  be  so  composed  as  to  be  capable 
of  being  read  with  enjoyment  by  those  who  bring 
interest  and  capacity  to  it.  One  cannot  be  playfully 
various  and  graphically  picturesque  upon  every  kind 
of  subject.  Once,  in  a  distant  British  colony,  a  friend 
of  mine  was  asked  by  a  person  who  knew  that  he  came 
from  the  University  of  Oxford,  "  What  do  you  think  of 
Euclid?"  My  friend  replied  that  Euclid's  "Elements 
of  Geometry" — if  that  was  what  the  question  referred 
to  —  was  a  valuable  treatise,  whose  reputation  had 
been  established  for  many  centuries.  "Yes,"  said  the 
questioner,  "but  what  do  you  think  of  Euclid's  style?" 
My  friend  answered  that  he  had  always  thought  more 
about  the  substance  than  about  the  style  of  Euclid, 
but  would  be  glad  to  know  his  questioner's  opinion. 
"Well,"  said  the  latter,  "I  consider  it  quite  a  good 


SOME  HINTS  ON  READING  371 

style,  but  too  systematic."  Eloquence,  variety,  and  wit 
are  not  the  particular  merits  we  look  for  in  a  scientific 
treatise,  but  however  dry  geometry  or  any  other 
subject  may  appear,  there  is  all  the  difference  between 
a  book  which  is  well  arranged  and  well  expressed,  a 
book  which  takes  a  grip  of  the  mind  and  affords  the 
pleasure  of  following  out  a  line  of  logical  thought, 
and  a  book  which  tumbles  out  facts  and  ideas  in  a 
confused  and  shapeless  heap. 

To  you  undergraduates  life  now  seems  a  long  vista 
with  infinite  possibilities.  But,  if  you  love  learning, 
you  will  soon  find  that  life  is  altogether  too  short  for 
reading  half  the  good  books  from  which  you  would 
like  to  cull  knowledge.  Let  not  an  hour  of  it  be 
wasted  on  third-rate  or  second-rate  stuff  if  first-rate 
stuff  can  be  had.  Goethe  once  said  of  some  one  he 
knew,  "  He  is  a  dull  man.  If  he  were  a  book,  I 
would  not  read  him."  When  you  find  that  a  book  is 
poor,  and  does  not  give  you  even  the  bare  facts  you 
are  in  search  of,  waste  no  more  time  upon  it. 

The  immensity  of  the  field  of  reading  suggests 
another  question.  Ought  a  man  to  read  widely,  trying 
to  keep  abreast  of  the  progress  of  knowledge  and 
thought  in  the  world  at  large,  or  is  it  better  that  he 
should  confine  himself  to  a  very  few  subjects,  and  to 
proceed  not  discursively  but  upon  some  regular 
system  ? 

Each  alternative  has  its  advantages,  but  considering 
how  rapidly  knowledge  is  extending  itself  in  all  direc- 


372      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

tions,  and  how  every  branch  of  it  is  becoming  special- 
ized, we  must  recognize  that  the  range  of  attainment 
possible  three  or  even  two  centuries  ago  is  now  un- 
attainable even  by  the  most  powerful  and  most 
industrious  minds.  To-day  the  choice  lies  between  su- 
perficiality in  a  larger,  and  some  approach  to  thorough- 
ness in  a  smaller,  number  of  topics.  Between  these 
alternatives  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  your  choice. 
Every  man  ought  to  be  thorough  in  at  least  one  thing, 
ought  to  know  what  exactness  and  accuracy  mean, 
ought  to  be  capable  by  his  mastery  of  some  one  topic 
of  having  an  opinion  that  is  genuinely  his  own.  So 
my  advice  to  you  would  be  to  direct  your  reading 
chiefly  to  a  few  subjects,  in  one  at  least  of  which 
you  may  hope  to  make  yourself  proficient,  and  as  re- 
gards other  subjects,  to  be  content  with  doing  what 
you  can  to  follow  the  general  march  of  knowledge. 
You  will  find  it  hard  —  indeed  impossible  —  to 
follow  that  march  in  the  physical  sciences,  unless  you 
start  with  some  special  knowledge  of  one  or  more  of 
them.  Many  of  the  branches  into  which  they  have 
been  diverging  are  now  so  specialized  that  the  ordinary- 
reader  can  hardly  comprehend  the  technical  terms  which 
modern  treatises  employ.  But  as  respects  travel  and 
history  and  biography,  and  similarly  as  respects  econom- 
ics, the  so-called  "sociological  subjects,"  art,  and  lit- 
erary criticism,  it  is  possible  for  a  man  who  husbands  his 
time  and  spends  little  of  it  on  newspapers  or  magazines, 
to  find  leisure  for  the  really  striking  books  that  are 


SOME  HINTS  ON  READING  373 

published  on  some  of  these  topics  which  lie  outside 
his  special  tastes.  Do  not,  however,  attempt  to  cover 
even  the  striking  books  on  all  of  such  topics.  You 
will  only  dissipate  your  forces.  Now  and  then  a  book 
appears  which  everybody  ought  to  read,  no  matter 
how  far  it  lies  out  of  his  range  of  study.  It  may  be 
a  brilliant  poem.  It  may  be  a  treatise  throwing  new 
light  on  some  current  question  of  home  or  foreign 
politics,  about  which  every  citizen,  because  he  is  a 
citizen,  ought  to  try  to  have  an  opinion.  It  may  be 
the  record  of  some  startling  discovery  in  the  realms  of 
archaeology,  for  instance,  or  in  some  branch  of  natural 
science.  But  such  books  are  rare ;  and  in  particular 
the  epoch-making  scientific  discoveries  are  seldom 
known  at  the  time  when  the  world  first  hears  of  them 
to  be  really  epoch-making. 

Two  questions  may,  however,  have  presented  them- 
selves to  you.  One  is  this :  Are  there  not  some  indis- 
pensable books  which  everyone  is  bound  to  read  on 
pain  of  being  deemed  to  be  not  an  educated  man? 
Certainly  there  are.  Every  language  has  its  classics 
which  those  who  speak  the  language  ought  to  have 
read  as  part  of  a  liberal  education.  In  our  own  tongue 
we  have,  say,  a  score  of  great  authors  —  it  would  be 
easy  to  add  another  dozen,  but  I  wish  to  be  moderate 
and  put  the  number  as  low  as  possible — of  whose  works 
every  one  of  us  is  bound  to  have  read  enough  to  enable 
him  to  appreciate  the  author's  peculiar  quality. 
These  of  course  you  must  read,  though  not  necessarily 


374     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

all  or  nearly  all  they  have  written.  Spenser,  for 
instance,  is  an  English  classic,  but  even  so  voracious 
a  reader  as  Macaulay  admitted  that  few  could  be 
expected  to  persevere  to  the  end  of  the  "Faery 
Queene."  Even  smaller  is  the  percentage  of  Dryden's 
works  which  a  man  may  feel  bound  to  read.  Do  not 
look  for  an  opinion  as  to  the  percentage  in  the  case  of 
Robert  Browning.  The  sooner  you  begin  to  read 
those  who  belong  to  this  score,  the  better,  for  most  of 
them  are  poets,  and  youth  is  the  season  in  which  to 
learn  to  love  poetry.  If  you  do  not  care  for  it  then, 
you  will  hardly  do  so  later. 

The  other  question  is,  What  about  fiction?  I  can 
just  recall  an  austere  time,  more  than  sixty  years  ago, 
when  in  Britain  not  a  few  moralists  and  educators 
were  disposed  to  ban  novel-reading  altogether  to 
young  people  and  to  treat  it  even  among  their  elders 
as  an  indulgence  almost  as  dangerous  as  the  use  of 
cards,  dice,  and  tobacco.  Exceptions,  however,  were 
made  even  by  the  sternest  of  these  authorities. 
I  recollect  that  one  of  them  gave  his  imprimatur  to 
two  stories  by  an  estimable  Scottish  authoress — now 
long  forgotten — named  Miss  Brunton.  These  tales 
were  entitled  "  Discipline  "  and  "  Self-Control,"  and  a 
perusal  of  them  was  well  fitted  to  discourage  the 
young  reader  from  indulging  any  further  his  taste  for 
imaginative  literature.  Permitted  fiction  being  scanty, 
I  did  attack  "  Self-Control,"  and  just  got  through  it, 
but  "  Discipline  "  was  too  much  for  me.  Fiction  is 


SOME  HINTS  ON  READING  375 

far  more  read  now;  being  abundant  and  cheaper, 
since  it  comes  in  the  form  of  magazines  as  well  as 
in  books.  But  we  have  no  Dickens,  no  Thackeray,  no 
Hawthorne,  no  George  Eliot. 

,  Need  anything  more  be  said  about  fiction  than  that 
we  should  deal  with  it  just  as  we  should  with  other 
kinds  of  literature  ?  Read  the  best ;  that  is  to  say, 
read  that  from  which  you  can  carry  away  something 
that  enlarges  the  range  of  your  knowledge  and  sets 
your  mind  working.  A  good  story,  be  it  a  historical 
romance  or  a  picture  of  contemporary  social  condi- 
tions, gives  something  that  is  worth  remembering.  It 
may  be  a  striking  type  of  character,  or  a  view  of  life 
and  the  influences  that  mould  life,  presented  in  a 
dramatic  form.  Or  perhaps  the  tale  portrays  the 
aspects  of  society  and  manners  in  some  other  country, 
or  is  made  a  vehicle  for  an  analysis  of  the  heart  and 
for  reflections  that  illuminate  some  of  the  dark  corners 
of  human  nature.  Whichever  of  them  it  be  that  a 
powerful  piece  of  fiction  gives,  the  result  is  something 
more  than  mere  transient  amusement.  Knowledge  is 
increased.  Thought  is  set  in  motion.  New  images 
rise  before  us.  It  is  an  enrichment  of  the  mind  to 
have  erected  within  it  a  gallery  of  characters,  the 
creation  of  imaginative  minds,  characters  who  be- 
come as  real  to  us  as  th'e  famous  characters  of  history, 
to  some  of  us  possibly  more  real.  In  them  we  see  the 
universal  traits  of  human  nature  and  learn  to  know  our- 
selves and  those  around  us  better,  we  comprehend  the 


376     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

common  temptations  and  aspirations,  the  mixture  of 
motives,  the  way  in  which  Fortune  plays  with  men. 
We  share  the  possession  of  this  gallery  with  other 
educated  men.  It  is  a  part  of  the  common  stock  of 
the  world's  wealth. 

The  danger  of  becoming  so  fond  of  fiction  as  to  care 
for  no  other  sort  of  reading,  a  malady  from  which  some 
men  and  more  women  are  said  to  suffer,  will  threaten 
nobody  who  has  formed  the  habit  of  reading  the  kind 
of  fiction  I  am  trying  to  describe,  because  he  will  enjoy 
no  other  kind.  A  boy  or  girl  can  usually  read  any 
sort  of  tale  be  it  better  or  worse  written.  The  story 
is  enough  for  him.  As  he  grows  older  and  has  read 
more  and  more  of  the  best  writers,  his  taste  becomes 
more  cultivated  and  exacting.  While  faults  repel  him 
more,  merits  attract  him  more,  because  he  has  become 
more  capable  of  appreciation.  At  last  a  poor  quality 
of  fiction  which  is  merely  commonplace,  handling 
threadbare  themes  in  a  hackneyed  way,  the  sort  of 
fiction  into  which  no  inventive  or  reflective  thought 
has  gone,  comes  to  bore  him.  He  can  no  longer  read 
it,  because  it  is  too  dull  or  too  vapid. 

Prose  fiction,  in  its  higher  forms,  cultivates  the 
imagination  almost  as  well  as  history  does,  but  poetry 
does  this  better  than  either.  The  pleasures  of  the 
imagination  are  among  the  highest  we  can  enjoy. 
Unless,  therefore,  any  one  of  you  is  so  unlucky  as  to 
find  no  delight  in  poetry,  it  will  always  form  a  part  of 
your  reading.  Not  much  of  the  highest  order  has 


SOME  HINTS  ON  READING  377 

been  appearing  in  these  later  days  in  any  country, 
but  there  is  such  an  abundance  from  former  days 
that"  you  will  never  want  for  plenty  to  read  and  no 
modern  language  possesses  so  much  poetry  of  first- 
rate  merit  as  does  our  own. 

It  seems  a  pity  that  the  old  practice  of  learning  a 
good  deal  of  poetry  by  heart  should  be  now  falling  into 
disuse,  for  it  stored  the  mind  hi  the  early  years  of  life 
with  fine  thoughts  in  fine  words  and  helped  to  form  a 
taste  for  style,  seeing  that  style  can  rise  to  greater 
heights  of  perfection  in  poetry  than  hi  any  kind  of 
prose.  As  to  what  to  read  in  poetry,  there  is  no  need 
hi  our  day  to  warn  any  one  against  reading  too  much, 
and  there  is  little  to  say  about  choice,  for  you  will 
naturally  be  drawn  first  to  the  great  and  famous 
classics  in  our  own  and  other  tongues,  and  they  will  so 
form  your  taste  that  you  will  know  how  to  choose 
among  other  verse  writers.  In  particular  do  not  omit 
those  few  great  writers  who  have  attained  to  a  distinc- 
tive way  of  looking  at  the  world  as  a  whole  (what  the 
Germans  call  a  Weltanschaung),  those  in  whose  minds 
and  works  human  nature  in  all  its  varieties,  human 
life  in  all  its  aspects,  is  mirrored.  The  author,  or  authors, 
of  the  Homeric  poems  is  the  earliest  example:  Goethe 
is  one  of  the  latest,  and  not  all  are  poets,  for  Cervantes 
is  among  them. 

A  man  who  does  not  care  for  those  whom  the  judg- 
ment of  the  world  has  approved,  may  conclude  that 
the  fault  is  with  himself.  But  it  is  not  always  the 


378      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

greatest  writers  that  give  the  most  pleasure.  Most  of 
us  have  some  two  or  three  poets  not  classed  in  the 
first  rank,  perhaps  writers  whose  fame  has  always  been 
limited,  to  whom  we  frequently  return  because  they 
express  thoughts  in  a  way  which  makes  a  special  appeal 
to  our  own  minds.  Look  out  for  these  also,  and 
cherish  them  when  you  have  found  them. 

Though  divers  wise  and  learned  men  have  drawn 
up  lists  of  what  they  describe  as  the  Best  Hundred 
Books,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  such  lists  have 
any  use  beyond  that  of  indicating  the  preferences 
of  their  eminent  compilers  and  the  use  also  of  re- 
calling to  the  notice  of  the  modern  public  some 
remarkable  works  which  it  had  nearly  forgotten.  The 
truth  is  that  the  excellence  of  a  book  is  not  absolute, 
i.e.  the  same  for  all  readers  alike,  but  rather  is 
relative  to  the  knowledge  and  capacities  and  environ- 
ment of  the  particular  reader.  Many  a  book  of  first- 
rate  value  to  a  person  prepared  by  education  and  spe- 
cial talents  to  appreciate  it  is  useless  to  others  not 
so  prepared.  A  more  really  interesting  enquiry  is, 
What  are  the  books  that  have  made  most  difference  to 
the  progress  of  the  world?  Such  books  are  a  part,  and  a 
significant  part,  of  world-history,  yet  some  of  them 
would  interest  comparatively  few  readers  to-day. 

The  question  of  how  much  time  should  be  devoted 
to  the  classics  of  other  countries  than  our  own  is  too 
large  a  one  for  me  to  enter  on.  Enough  to  say  that 
whoever  knows  Latin  or  Greek  or  Italian  or  French  or 


SOME  HINTS  ON  READING  379 

German  or  Spanish  or  Icelandic,  will  not  need  to  be 
told  that  he  ought  to  be  just  as  anxious  to  know  the 
masterpieces  in  those  languages  as  those  in  his  own. 
The  ancient  classics  in  particular  give  something  which 
no  modern  literature  supplies. 

From  considering  What  to  read,  let  us  go  on  to  con- 
sider How  to  read.  Here  my  advice  to  you  would  be, 
Read  with  a  purpose.  Bend  your  mind  upon  the  book. 
Read  it  so  as  to  get  out  of  it  the  best  it  has  to  give  you. 
You  may  accept  this  advice  as  applicable  to  what  is 
read  for  information,  but  may  think  it  superfluous  if 
the  book  is  a  story  or  other  work  read  for  amusement, 
because  presumably  no  one  will  persevere  with  such  a 
book  unless  it  interests  him.  Yet  even  where  the  aim 
is  amusement  and  the  book  a  work  of  fiction  one  man 
may,  if  he  read  it  in  the  right  way,  extract  more 
benefit  as  well  as  more  pleasure  than  another  would 
do.  If  the  story  is  worth  reading,  it  is  so  because  it 
not  only  appeals  to  our  curiosity,  but  also  because  it 
pleasurably  stirs  our  thought. 

With  other  kinds  of  literature,  with  science  or 
philosophy  or  history  or  economics,  the  worth  of 
the  book  is  to  be  measured  by  what  you  can 
carry  away  from  it,  and  that  depends  mainly  on 
the  spirit  in  which  you  read.  The  book,  as  already 
observed,  must  have  quality  enough  to  stimulate 
thought,  to  give  you  what  is  called  a  mental  reaction. 
But  however  good  the  quality,  the  reaction  will  not 
follow  unless  you  address  your  mind  to  the  subject. 


380     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

The  purpose  must  be  either  to  get  something  —  whether 
facts  or  ideas  —  which  you  can  add  to  your  store  of 
knowledge  or  else  to  receive  a  stimulus  which  will 
quicken  your  own  powers  of  thinking  and  feeling. 
These  two  benefits  usually  go  together.  It  is  not  the 
quantity  of  reading  that  counts,  but  the  quantity  and 
the  intensity  of  thought  that  are  evoked.  Nothing  is 
gained  by  skimming  over  hundreds  or  thousands  of 
pages  of  print  unless  something  remains  from  the 
process.  So  if  after  having  honestly  applied  your 
intellect  to  a  book  you  do  not  find  anything  you  care 
to  carry  away,  drop  it.  Either  it  is  not  worth  further 
effort,  or  it  maybe  outside  the  range  of  your  appreciation. 

You  will  not,  however,  fancy  that  all  the  books  you 
may  have  to  consult  deserve  careful  study.  If 
thoroughness  is  a  virtue  to  be  cultivated,  still  more  is 
time  a  thing  to  be  saved.  The  old  maxim,  "  Whatever 
is  worth  doing  is  worth  doing  well,"  is  less  true  than  it 
seems,  and  has  led  many  people  into  a  lamentable 
waste  of  time.  Many  things  are  worth  doing  if  you 
can  do  them  passably  well  with  a  little  time  and 
effort,  which  are  not  worth  doing  thoroughly  if  so  to 
do  them  requires  much  time  and  effort. 

Time  is  the  measure  of  everything  in  life,  and 
every  kind  of  work  ought  to  be  adjusted  to  it.  One  of 
the  commonest  mistakes  we  all  make  is  spending  our- 
selves on  things  whose  value  is  below  the  value  of  the 
time  they  require.  Many  a  book  may  be  worth  read- 
ing rapidly  so  as  to  extract  from  it  the  few  important 


SOME  HINTS  ON  READING  381 

facts  it  contains,  and  yet  be  by  no  means  worth  a 
prolonged  study.  Economize  time  in  reading  as  in 
everything  else.  The  adage  that  Time  is  Money  falls 
far  short  of  the  truth.  Time  is  worth  more  than 
money  because  by  its  judicious  employment  more 
enjoyment  can  be  secured  than  money  can  purchase. 

One  of  the  less  fortunate  results  of  the  large  amount 
of  matter  which  the  printing-press  turns  out  in  our  time 
is  the  tendency  it  has  bred  to  read  everything  hastily 
and  unthinkingly.  The  man  who  glances  through 
several  newspapers  in  the  morning  and  two  or  three 
magazines  in  the  evening  forms  the  habit  of  inattention, 
or,  more  correctly,  half  attention.  He  reads  with  no  in- 
tention of  remembering  anything  except  what  directly 
and  urgently  bears  upon  his  own  business,  and  when 
hi  the  scanty  leisure  which  business  and  the  practice 
of  reading  newspapers  and  magazines  leave  him,  he 
takes  up  a  book,  this  habit  of  half  attention  prevents 
him  from  applying  his  mind  to  what  he  reads. 
Instead  of  stimulating  thought,  constant  reading  of 
this  kind  deadens  it,  and  the  quantity  of  reading  and 
the  quantity  of  thinking  are  apt  to  be  in  inverse  ratio 
to  one  another.  To  say,  "Don't  read  without  think- 
ing," might  be  deemed  to  be  that  useless  thing,  a 
Counsel  of  Perfection ;  but  I  may  say,  "Beware  of  the 
Reading  Habit."  It  is  one  of  the  curses  of  our  age. 
What  is  wanted  to-day  is  less  printing  and  less  reading, 
but  more  thinking.  Reading  is  easy,  and  thinking  is 
hard  work,  but  the  one  is  useless  without  the  other. 


382      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

You  may  ask  what  is  the  best  way  of  trying  so  to 
read  books  as  to  be  able  to  retain  the  best  they  give 
us.  If  the  book  be  one  you  wish  to  know  with  abso- 
lute thoroughness,  as  students  at  Oxford  University 
were  in  my  time  expected  to  know  Aristotle's  Ethics 
and  the  history  of  Thucydides  for  our  degree  examina- 
tion, you  will  find  it  a  good  plan  to  read  over  every  day 
all  that  you  read  the  day  before.  At  first  this  is  irksome, 
but  it  fixes  things  in  your  mind  and  is  a  saving  in  the 
long  run.  Everybody  has  his  own  devices  for  record- 
ing what  he  deems  best  in  what  he  reads,  but  I  can  rec- 
ommend that  of  making  very  short  notes,  or  references, 
on  the  fly  leaf  (or  leaves)  at  the  end  and  beginning  of  a 
volume  of  the  most  important  facts  or  views  it  contains, 
noting  the  page  on  which  each  occurs,  so  that  one  can 
refer  promptly  to  the  things  which  struck  one  at  the 
time.  Where  a  work  is  either  of  exceptional  merit  for 
its  fertility  in  suggestion,  or  is  specially  rich  in  out-of- 
the-way  facts,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  bind  in 
additional  fly  leaves.  Should  the  book  be  not  one's 
own  but  borrowed  from  a  friend  or  a  library,  one 
must  of  course  make  the  notes  or  references  in  a  Ms. 
note-book,  and  in  that  case,  since  the  treatise  will  not 
be  at  hand  to  refer  to,  it  becomes  necessary  to  make 
a  somewhat  fuller  abstract  of  the  facts  it  is  desired  to 
remember.  The  advantage  of  either  method  is  that 
the  process  of  compressing  the  fact  or  view  into  the 
fewest  possible  words  helps  to  fix  it  in  the  memory.  I 
remember  cases  in  which  eight  or  ten  entries  represented 


SOME  HINTS  ON  READING  383 

the  total  results  of  reading  a  book  of  four  hundred 
octavo  pages,  yet  those  entries  might  serve  to  make 
some  dark  things  clear. 

The  late  Lord  Acton,  the  most  learned  man  I  ever 
knew,  was  in  the  habit  of  copying  out  on  slips 
of  paper  passages  or  sentences  which  he  thought 
valuable  from  all  the  volumes  he  perused.  He  had 
hundreds  of  cardboard  boxes  filled  with  these  slips,  the 
boxes  being  labelled  with  the  titles  of  their  subjects; 
and  he  seemed  to  know  how  to  lay  his  hand  upon  any 
extract  he  wanted.  Few,  however,  could  hope  to  bring 
leisure  and  industry  like  his  to  the  accumulation  of 
such  a  mass  of  knowledge ;  and  he  spent  so  much  time 
in  the  process  of  gathering  the  opinions  of  others  that 
he  had  little  left  for  using  them  or  for  giving  the  world 
the  fruit  of  his  own  thoughts,  often  far  better  worth 
having  than  that  which  he  had  plucked  from  other 
orchards. 

There  are  those  who  keep  note-books  in  which  they 
enter  the  most  remarkable  facts  or  aphorisms  or 
statements  of  doctrine  and  opinion  which  they  en- 
counter in  the  course  of  their  reading.  For  persons 
fortunate  enough  to  have  formed  methodical  habits 
this  may  be  a  good  plan. 

Ought  reading  to  be  systematic  ?  Should  a  man  lay 
down  a  scheme  and  confine  himself  to  one  or  more  sub- 
jects in  which  he  can  become  proficient  rather  than 
spread  himself  out  in  superficial  sciolism  over  a  large 
number  ? 


384     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

For  many  of  us  Life  answers  this  question  by  requir- 
ing attention  to  be  devoted  primarily  to  books  which 
bear  upon  our  occupation  or  are  connected  with  it. 
For  others  again  pronounced  tastes  point  out  certain 
lines  of  reading  as  those  in  which  they  will  find  most 
pleasure.  Yet  there  is  also  a  third  class  whom  neither 
their  avocations  nor  any  marked  personal  prefer- 
ences guide  in  any  particular  direction.  My  advice  to 
these  would  be :  If  you  have  not  got  a  definite  taste,  try 
to  acquire  one.  Find  some  pursuit  or  line  of  study  which 
you  can  relish,  and  give  to  it  most  of  your  spare  time. 
It  will  be  a  constant  spring  of  pleasure,  an  occupation 
in  solitude,  a  distraction  from  worries,  even  a  consola- 
tion in  misfortune,  to  have  something  unconnected 
with  one's  daily  work  to  which  one  can  turn  for  change 
and  refreshment  of  spirit.  Some  branch  of  natural 
history,  or  some  one  of  the  physical  sciences,  is  perhaps 
the  best  for  this  purpose,  but  any  branch  of  history 
or  archaeology  or  art  (including,  as  one  of  the  very 
best,  music)  will  serve.  When  one  has  such  a  pursuit 
or  taste,  it  naturally  becomes  the  central  line  which  a 
man's  reading  follows.  In  advising  a  concentration  of 
study  upon  some  few  topics,  I  do  not  suggest  that  you 
should  cease  to  interest  yourselves  in  the  general 
movements  of  the  world.  Everyone  ought  to  try  to 
keep  abreast  of  his  time,  so  far  at  least  as  not  to  be 
ignorant  of  the  great  advances  that  are  being  made. 
Of  most  of  these  you  will  not  be  able  to  know 
much,  but  the  more  you  can  know,  the  better,  so  long 


SOME  HINTS  ON  READING  385 

as  you  do  not  scatter  and  dissipate  your  efforts  in  such 
wise  as  to  become  a  mere  smatterer. 

There  is  a  maxim  which,  like  that  other  venerable 
dictum  already  referred  to,  sounds  good  but  has  often 
done  harm.  (A  book  might  be  written  with  the  title 
Moral  Maxims  and  the  Mischief  they  Do.}  You  all 
remember  the  lines: 

A  little  learning  is  a  dangerous  thing ; 
Drink  deep  or  taste  not  the  Pierian  spring. 

With  all  respect  to  the  poet,  this  is  by  no  means 
true.  A  little  learning  is  not  dangerous  so  long  as  you 
know  that  it  is  little.  Danger  begins  with  thinking  you 
know  much  more  than  you  do.  It  is  not  knowledge, 
be  it  great  or  small,  but  the  conceit  of  knowledge,  that 
misleads  men :  and  the  best  remedy  against  this  is  not 
ignorance,  but  the  knowing  some  one  thing  really  well. 
Thoroughness  in  one  subject  enables  a  man  to  recog- 
nize his  scantiness  of  attainment  in  other  subjects,  not 
to  add  that  to  have  learnt  any  one  thing  well  helps 
him  in  dealing  with  whatever  else  he  touches,  since 
he  learns  to  discern  more  quickly  what  is  essential, 
and  to  make  sure  that  his  knowledge,  even  if  it 
remains  elementary,  is  not  merely  superficial. 

Do  not  be  surprised  if  after  advising  you  to  read 
thoroughly  I  also  advise  you  to  learn  to  read  swiftly. 
There  is  no  inconsistency,  for  thoroughness  depends 
not  so  much  on  the  time  spent  on  a  piece  of  work  as 
upon  the  intensity  wherewith  the  mind  is  concentrated 

2C 


386     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

upon  it.  One  man  will  read  a  book  in  half  as  many 
hours  as  another,  and  yet  know  more  of  what  is  in 
the  book ;  and  this  because  of  his  superior  power  of 
turning  upon  it  the  full  stream  of  his  mental  energy. 
Only  exceptional  minds  possess  this  gift  in  high 
measure,  as  did  Macaulay,  who  read  a  book  so  swiftly 
that  he  seemed  to  turn  the  pages  almost  without 
pausing,  taking  in  at  one  glance  all  that  was  in  them, 
and  yet  carrying  away  all  that  was  worth  remem- 
bering. But  you  can  cultivate  the  gift  by  practice, 
and  it  deserves  cultivating,  for  it  means  better  results 
with  less  time  spent. 

The  counsel  of  swift  reading  is,  of  course,  appli- 
cable only  to  books  which  are  read  chiefly  for  their 
facts  or  their  views,  not  to  those  whose  merit  lies 
largely  in  their  style.  It  would  be  folly  to  gallop 
through  Virgil  or  Keats  or  Charles  Lamb  or  Heinrich 
Heine  or  Chateaubriand.  Not  in  poetry  only  must 
one  move  deliberately,  but  also  in  reading  fine 'and 
finished  prose,  where  every  word  has  its  fitting  place 
in  the  sentence,  and  its  due  effect  in  calling  up  subtle 
associations  and  in  touching,  however  delicately,  the 
spring  of  emotion. 

Finally,  let  me  suggest  that  you  read  with  inde- 
pendence. There  are  various  spirits  in  which  a 
book  may  be  approached.  One  must  not  be  captious, 
hunting  out  mistakes  or  blemishes.  But  neither  must 
one  submissively  assume  that  the  author  is  always 
right.  No  author,  however  great,  is  exempt  from 


SOME  HINTS  ON  READING  387 

error.  True  it  is  that  modesty  is  always  in  order, 
and  deference  due  to  writers  of  established  credit. 
We  must  take  them  as  likely  to  be  wiser  than  we  are. 
Nevertheless,  if  you  wish  to  profit  by  your  reading, 
do  not  forget  to  scrutinize  each  argument  as  it  is  pre- 
sented, each  inference  drawn,  each  maxim  delivered, 
to  see  if  it  be  justified  by  the  facts.  Sound  criticism 
seeks  rather  to  discover  and  appreciate  merits  than  to 
note  faults ;  but  however  ready  we  may  be  to  admire, 
we  must  test  our  author  as  we  go  along,  and  make 
sure  that  the  view  we  accept  from  him  is  formed  not 
because  he  has  given  it  but  because  he  has  con- 
vinced us  that  it  is  correct.  As  your  forefathers  said 
that  perpetual  vigilance  is  the  price  of  freedom,  so 
you  may  say  that  it  is  also  the  price  of  learning.  In 
a  free  country  every  citizen  is  responsible  for  the 
formation  of  his  opinions,  and  must  take  them  neither 
from  newspapers  nor  from  platform  speeches.  So  in 
the  domain  of  knowledge  a  man  will  lose  half  the 
benefit  of  his  study  if  he  reads  in  a  passively  receptive 
way,  neglecting  to  apply  his  own  judgment.  Often 
he  will  not  be  able  to  test  his  author.  Often  when  he 
differs  from  his  author  the  author  will  be  right,  and  he 
wrong  in  venturing  to  differ.  Nevertheless,  such  error 
is  better  than  an  indolent  acquiescence  which  brings 
to  bear  no  independent  thought. 

To  say  this  is  to  repeat  in  different  words  the  remark 
that  the  reading  which  counts  is  the  reading  which, 
in  making  a  man  think,  stirs  and  exercises  and  polishes 


388     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

the  edge  of  his  mind.  The  end  of  study  is  not  to  pos- 
sess knowledge  as  a  man  possesses  the  coins  in  his 
purse,  but  to  make  knowledge  a  part  of  ourselves,  that 
is,  to  turn  knowledge  into  thought,  as  the  food  we  eat 
is  turned  into  the  life-giving  and  nerve-nourishing 
blood.  It  is  to  have  a  mind  so  stored  and  equipped 
that  it  shall  be  to  each  man,  as  to  the  imprisoned  sage, 
his  kingdom,  of  which  no  one  can  deprive  him.  When 
you  have  begun  by  forming  the  habit  of  thinking  as 
you  read,  and  exercising  your  own  judgment  freely, 
though  modestly,  you  will  find  your  footing  grow 
firmer  and  surer  as  you  advance,  and  will  before  long 
know  for  yourselves  what  to  read  and  how  to  read. 
Life  has  few  greater  pleasures. 


NATIONAL  PARKS  — THE  NEED  OF  THE 
FUTURE 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  EIGHTH  ANNUAL  CONVENTION 
OF  THE  AMERICAN  Crvic  ASSOCIATION,  BALTIMORE,  MARYLAND, 
NOVEMBER  20,  1912,  THE  HON.  WALTER  L.  FISHER,  SECRE- 
TARY OF  THE  INTERIOR,  PRESIDING. 


NATIONAL  PARKS  — THE  NEED  OF  THE 
FUTURE 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  EIGHTH  ANNUAL  CONVENTION 
OF  THE  AMERICAN  Crvic  ASSOCIATION,  BALTDJIORE,  MARYLAND, 
NOVEMBER  20,  1912,  THE  HON.  WALTER  L.  FISHER,  SECRE- 
TARY OF  THE  INTERIOR,  PRESIDING. 

HAVING  come  here  for  the  first  time  forty-two  years 
ago,  I  have  known  the  United  States  long  enough  to 
feel  just  as  much  interested  in  all  those  questions  that 
relate  to  your  welfare,  in  city  and  in  country,  as  if  I 
were  one  of  your  own  citizens,  and  I  hope  you  will  allow 
me  to  speak  to  you  with  that  freedom  which  you  would 
allow  to  one  of  your  citizens.  In  discussing  a  subject 
so  far  removed  from  politics  or  any  other  controversial 
field  as  is  that  which  occupies  you  this  evening,  I  need 
not  feel  those  limitations  which  an  official  position 
would  otherwise  impose. 

There  is  one  thing  better  even  than  that  City 
Beautiful  to  which  previous  speakers  have  referred, 
and  that  is  the  Country  Beautiful.  Before  there 
were  cities  there  was  a  Country.  It  holds  for  us 
greater  and  more  varied  beauties  than  a  city  can,  and 
it  contains  more  that  appeals  to  our  imagination,  and 
is  associated  with  the  sweet  recollections  of  childhood. 

391 


392     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

Let  me  say  something  about  the  need  for  preserving 
rural  beauty. 

I  have  had  in  England  some  experience  in  dealing 
with  the  questions  you  are  discussing,  having  been 
for  some  years  chairman  of  a  society  for  preserving 
commons  and  open  spaces  and  public  rights  of  way, 
and  having  also  served  on  the  committee  of  another 
society  for  securing  to  the  public  places  of  national 
and  historic  interest.  Thus  I  was  led  often  to  think 
of  what  is  our  duty  to  the  future,  and  of  the  benefits 
which  the  preservation  of  places  of  natural  beauty 
may  confer  on  the  community.  That  is  a  problem 
which  presents  itself,  not  only  in  Great  Britain,  but 
all  over  Europe,  and  now  you  in  America  are  tend- 
ing to  become  what  Europe  already  is.  Europe  is 
now  a  populous,  almost  overcrowded,  continent.  You 
will  some  day  be  a  populous  and  ultimately,  perhaps, 
except  in  those  regions  which  the  want  of  rain  con- 
demns to  sterility,  a  crowded  continent,  and  it  is 
well  to  take  thought  at  once,  before  the  days  of  over- 
crowding confront  you,  how  you  will  deal  with  the 
difficulties  which  have  met  us  in  Europe,  so  that  you 
may  learn  as  much  as  possible  from  our  experience, 
and  not  find  too  late  that  the  beauty  and  primitive 
simplicity  of  nature  have  been  snatched  from  you  by 
private  individuals. 

I  need  not  descant  upon  that  which  the  love  of  nature 
is,  or  at  least  ought  to  be,  to  each  and  all  of  us.  Of 
all  those  pleasures,  the  power  to  enjoy  which  has  been 


NATIONAL  PARKS  393 

implanted  in  us,  the  love  of  nature  is  the  very 
simplest  and  best.  It  is  the  most  easily  accessible,  it 
is  one  which  can  never  be  perverted,  it  is  one  of  which 
(as  the  old  darky  said  about  the  watermelon)  you  can- 
not have  too  much.  It  lasts  from  youth  to  age.  We 
cannot  enjoy  it  in  the  form  of  strenuous  physical 
exercise  with  the  same  fulness  in  old  age,  because  our 
powers  of  walking,  swimming,  and  climbing  are  not  the 
same,  but  we  have  an  ampler  and  richer  enjoyment  in 
some  other  ways,  because,  we  have  the  memories  and 
associations  of  the  past  and  especially  of  those  in  whose 
company  we  have  in  bygone  days  visited  beautiful 
scenes.  And  there  are  also  the  literary  associations 
with  which  poetry  clothes  many  a  wild  or  lovely  spot. 
The  farther  a  people  recedes  from  barbarism,  the  more 
refined  are  its  tastes,  the  more  gentle  its  manners,  the 
less  sordid  its  aims,  so  much  the  greater  is  its  suscepti- 
bility to  every  form  of  beauty,  so  much  the  more  do 
the  charms  of  nature  appeal  to  it.  Delight  in  them 
is  a  test  of  civilization. 

As  the  love  of  nature  is  happily  increasing  among  us, 
it  becomes  all  the  more  important  to  find  means  for 
safeguarding  nature.  Population  is  also  increasing, 
and  thus  the  number  of  people  who  desire  to  enjoy 
nature  is  growing  larger  both  absolutely  and  in 
proportion  to  the  whole.  But,  unfortunately,  the 
opportunities  for  enjoyment,  except  as  regards  easier 
locomotion,  are  not  increasing.  The  world  is  circum- 
scribed, and  we  feel  the  narrowness  of  it  more  and 


394     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

more  as  all  its  corners  are  explored  and  surveyed.  The 
surface  of  this  little  earth  of  ours  is  indeed  sadly 
limited,  and  we  cannot  add  to  it.  When  a  man  finds 
his  house  too  small,  he  builds  more  rooms  on  to  it,  but 
we  cannot  add  to  our  earth;  we  did  not  make  it,  it 
was  made  for  us,  and  we  cannot  by  taking  thought  in- 
crease its  dimensions.  All  that  can  be  done  is  turn  it 
to  the  best  possible  account. 

Now,  let  us  remember  that  the  quantity  of  natural 
beauty  in  the  world,  that  is  to  say,  the  regions  and 
spots  calculated  to  give  enjoyment  in  the  highest  form, 
are  limited,  and  are  being  constantly  encroached  upon. 
This  encroachment  takes  four  forms.  There  is  the  de- 
sire of  private  persons  to  appropriate  beautiful  scenery 
to  themselves  by  enclosing  it  in  private  grounds  and 
debarring  the  public  from  access  to  it.  We  in  England 
and  Scotland  have  lost  some  of  the  most  beautiful  scen- 
ery we  possess  because  it  has  been  taken  into  private 
estates.  There  is  the  habit  of  excluding  people  even 
from  land  uncultivated  and  remote  from  houses  for  the 
sake  of  "sport."  A  great  deal  of  the  finest  scenery 
in  Scotland  is  now  practically  unapproachable  by  the 
pedestrian  or  the  artist  or  the  naturalist  because  rich 
people  have  appropriated  it  to  their  own  self -regarding 
purposes  and  insist  on  excluding  the  public.  This  is 
especially  the  case  where  the  motive  for  exclusion  is 
what  is  called  sport.  Sport  is  understood  to  mean 
killing  God's  creatures  for  man's  amusement,  and  for 
the  sake  of  this  amusement — the  killing  of  deer  and 


NATIONAL  PARKS  395 

birds,  an  amusement  which  gives  pleasure  only  to  a 
handful  of  men  —  very  large  areas  in  Britain  (and 
some  few  also  hi  other  parts  of  Europe)  have  been 
within  the  last  sixty  or  seventy  years  closed  against 
all  the  rest  of  the  nation. 

The  enjoyment  of  natural  beauty  is  further  threatened 
by  the  operations  of  the  lumberman.  He  is  a  force 
we  do  not  have  to  fear  in  Britain,  because,  timber 
no  longer  exists  there  in  sufficient  quantity  to  be  an 
article  of  economic  value  to  us,  but  it  is  a  very  serious 
question  here.  You  have  prodigious  and  magnificent 
forests;  there  are  perhaps  no  others  in  the  world 
comparable  for  extent  and  splendor  with  those  you 
possess.  These  forests,  especially  those  on  the  Cas- 
cade range  and  the  Sierra  Nevada,  are  now  being  cut 
down  rapidly  and  ruthlessly.  You  cannot  blame  the 
men  who  are  cutting  and  selling  the  timber ;  timber  is 
needed,  and  they  want  to  drive  their  trade,  but  the 
process  goes  on  too  fast,  and  much  of  the  charm  of 
nature  is  lost,  while  the  interests  of  the  future  are  for- 
gotten. Superb  woods  of  the  huge  Sequoia  gigantea, 
the  so-called  Big  Trees,  were  falling  under  the  axe  in 
the  southern  part  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  in  1909,  and 
it  would  take  a  thousand  years  to  replace  these  giants. 
The  same  thing  is  happening  in  the  Appalachian  ranges 
in  New  England  and  in  the  Alleghanies  southward 
from  Pennsylvania,  a  country  of  great  sylvan  beauty. 
In  many  places,  after  the  trees  have  been  cut  off,  there 
is  left  an  inextricable  tangle  of  small  boughs  and  twigs, 


396     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

so  that  when  a  dry  year  comes  any  spark  will  start  a 
fire,  and  the  fire  rages  among  the  dead  boughs,  and  the 
land  is  so  scorched  that  for  many  long  years  no  great 
trees  will  rise  to  replace  those  that  were  destroyed. 

Note  also  that  in  recent  years  water  power  has, 
since  scientific  discoveries  enabled  it  to  be  applied  in 
the  form  of  electricity,  become  an  asset  of  great  com- 
mercial value.  You  fortunately  have  an  enormous 
supply  of  water  power.  No  one  will  deny  that  a  great 
deal  of  it,  perhaps  most  of  it,  may  be  properly  used 
for  industrial  purposes,  but  neither  can  it  be  doubted 
that  it  has  been  used  in  some  places  to  the  detriment, 
and  even  to  the  ruin,  of  scenery.  It  has  been  used  at 
Niagara,  for  instance,  to  such  an  extent  as  to  change 
completely  the  character  of  what  was  once  the  most 
beautiful  waterfall  landscape  in  the  whole  world. 
Those  of  you  who  did  not  see  that  landscape,  as  I  did, 
forty-two  years  ago,  with  the  long  line  of  clear  green 
water  plunging  over  the  precipice,  the  foaming  splen- 
dour of  the  rapids  above,  and  the  tossing  billows  of  the 
Whirlpool  Gorge  below,  and  so  cannot  contrast  what 
is  seen  now  with  what  was  seen  in  those  days,  cannot 
know  what  a  wretched  shadow  of  its  former  self  it  has 
become  —  not  so  much  by  the  diminution  of  the  flow 
of  the  river  as  by  the  hideous  erections  which  line  the 
shores  and  by  the  smoke  from  many  a  chimney  that 
pollutes  the  air.  It  is  not  too  late  to  repair  what  has 
been  done,  and  I  hope  the  day  will  come  when  the 
pristine  flow  of  its  waters  will  be  restored,  and  when 


NATIONAL  PARKS  397 

the  devastating  agencies  will  have  been  removed.  That 
we  will  leave  for  a  future  generation  which  will  have 
begun  to  appreciate  scenery  more  highly  than  men  did 
thirty  years  ago,  when  the  ruin  of  which  I  speak  was  just 
beginning.  One  may  say  of  the  enterprising  capitalists 
who  have  made  fortunes  out  of  this  national  possession 
what  the  Emperor  Charles  the  Fifth  said  to  the  eccle- 
siastics of  Cordova  who  had  turned  the  central  part  of 
the  great  Mosque  into  a  church.  "  You  have  destroyed 
something  that  was  absolutely  unique  in  the  world  in 
order  to  do  something  which  could  have  been  equally 
well  done  anywhere  else." 

Taking  all  these  causes  together,  you  can  see  how 
many  encroachments  there  are  upon  the  unique  beauty 
of  your  country ;  and  I  beg  you  to  consider  that,  al- 
though the  United  States  is  vast  and  has  mountain  and 
forest  regions  far  more  extensive  than  we  can  boast  in 
little  countries  like  England  or  Scotland,  even  your 
scenery  is  not  inexhaustible,  and,  with  your  great  popu- 
lation and  the  growing  desire  to  enjoy  the  beauties  of 
nature,  you  have  not  any  more  than  you  need.  For- 
tunately, you  have  made  a  good  beginning  hi  the  work  of 
conservation.  You  have  led  the  world  in  the  creation 
of  National  Parks.  I  have  seen  three  or  four  of  these, 
the  Yosemite  twice,  the  Yellowstone  twice,  and  the 
splendid  forest  region  which  you  have  around  that 
mountain  which  the  people  of  Seattle  now  insist  on 
calling  Mount  Rainier,  —  no  doubt  the  name  originally 
given  by  Vancouver,  —  but  which  used,  when  I  wan- 


398      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

dered  through  its  forests  and  traversed  its  glaciers, 
thirty  years  ago,  to  be  called  by  the  more  sonorous 
Indian  name,  Tacoma.  And  there  is  also  that  superb 
reserve  on  the  north  side  of  the  Grand  Canon  of  the 
Colorado  River,  as  well  as  Glacier  Park  in  Mon- 
tana and  others  of  minor  extent  in  other  parts 
of  the  country.  The  creation  of  such  National  Parks 
has  not  only  been  good  for  you,  but  has  had  the  ad- 
mirable effect  of  setting  other  countries  to  emulate 
your  example.  Australia  and  New  Zealand  have  fol- 
lowed that  example.  New  Zealand,  in  the  district  of 
its  hot  springs  and  geysers,  has  dedicated  to  the  public 
a  scenic  area  something  similar  to  your  Yellowstone 
Park  geyser  region,  though  not  on  so  extensive  a  scale ; 
the  people  of  New  South  Wales  have  set  off  three 
beautiful  National  Parks  within  forty  miles  of  the 
capital  city  of  Sydney,  taking  mountain  and  forest 
regions  of  exquisite  beauty  and  keeping  them  for  a 
source  of  delight  to  the  growing  population  of  that  city. 
Thus  your  example  is  bearing  good  fruit.  I  only  wish 
it  had  come  sooner  to  us  in  England  and  Scotland 
before  we  had  permitted  the  control  of  so  much  of  our 
own  best  scenery  to  pass  into  private  ownership. 

One  of  the  things  your  Association  has  to  care  for 
is  not  only  the  provision  of  more  parks,  but  also  the 
methods  to  be  followed  for  keeping  the  existing  parks  in 
the  best  condition.  I  heard  the  other  day  that  a  ques- 
tion has  been  raised  as  to  whether  automobiles  should 
be  admitted  in  the  Yosemite  Valley.  May  a  word  be 


NATIONAL  PARKS  399 

permitted  on  that  subject  ?  If  Adam  had  known  what 
harm  the  serpent  was  going  to  work,  he  would  have 
tried  to  prevent  him  from  finding  lodgment  in  Eden; 
and  if  you  stop  to  realize  what  the  result  of  the  auto- 
mobile will  be  in  that  wonderful,  that  incomparable 
valley,  you  will  keep  it  out.  The  one  drawback  to 
enjoyment  of  the  Yosemite  Valley  in  the  summer  and 
autumn  is  the  dust.  The  granite  rock  becomes  in  the 
roads  fine  sand;  even  under  existing  conditions  the 
feet  of  the  horses  and  the  wheels  of  the  vehicles  raise 
a  great  deal  of  it,  enough  to  interfere  with  enjoyment 
as  one  drives  or  walks;  but  the  conditions  would 
become  grievously  worse  with  the  swift  automobile. 
And,  further,  the  automobile  would  destroy  what  may 
be  called  the  sentimental  charm  of  the  landscape.  It 
is  not  merely  that  dust  clouds  would  fill  the  air  and  coat 
the  foliage,  but  the  whole  feeling  of  the  spontaneity 
and  freshness  of  primitive  nature  would  be  marred  by 
this  modern  invention,  with  its  din  and  whir  and 
odious  smell.  Remember,  moreover,  that  one  cannot 
really  enjoy  fine  scenery  when  travelling  at  a  rate  of 
fifteen  to  twenty  or  twenty-five  miles  an  hour.  If  you 
want  to  enjoy  the  beauty  of  such  landscapes  as  the  Yo- 
semite presents,  you  must  see  them  slowly.  Fine  scenery 
is  seen  best  of  all  in  walking,  when  one  can  stop  at  any 
moment  and  enjoy  any  special  point  of  view,  but 
it  is  also  agreeably  seen  in  riding  or  driving,  because 
in  moving  at  a  pace  of  five  or  six  miles  an  hour  you 
are  not  going  too  fast  to  take  in  the  minor  beauties  of 


400     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

the  landscape.  But  travelling  faster  than  that  —  and 
my  experience  is  that  chauffeurs  so  delight  in  speed 
that  it  is  hard  to  get  them  to  slacken  even  when  you 
bid  them  —  you  cannot  enjoy  the  beauty.  It  was 
often  my  duty  in  the  British  Parliament  to  oppose  bills 
conferring  powers  to  build  railways  through  some  of  the 
beautiful  lake  and  valley  scenery,  —  scenery  on  a  much 
smaller  scale  than  that  of  this  Continent,  but  quite  as 
beautiful,  which  we  possess  in  Britain.  The  advocates  of 
the  bills  urged  that  passengers  could  look  out  at  the  land- 
scape from  the  windows  of  the  railroad  car.  But  we 
pointed  out  that  it  is  impossible  to  get  the  full  enjoy- 
ment of  a  romantic  landscape  from  a  railway  window, 
especially  where  the  beauties  are  delicate  and  the  scale 
small.  It  is  different  where  scenery  is  on  a  vast  scale, 
so  that  the  railway  is  insignificant  in  comparison,  and 
the  objects,  rocks  or  mountains  or  rivers,  are  huge. 
There  one  may  get  some  pleasure  from  the  big  views 
even  as  seen  from  a  train,  though  they  are  far  better 
seen  in  walking  or  driving,  but  you  cannot  enjoy  the 
small  beauties  either  of  form  or  of  colour.  The  focus  is 
always  changing,  and  it  is  impossible  to  give  that  kind 
of  enjoyment  which  a  painter,  or  any  devotee  of 
nature,  seeks  if  you  are  hurrying  past  at  a  swift  auto- 
mobile pace.  Whoever  loves  fine  scenery  has  a  sort  of 
feeling  that  he  is  wasting  it  when  he  passes  through  it 
on  a  train  instead  of  on  foot  or  driving  in  an  open 
vehicle. 
It  will  of  course  be  said  that  the  automobile  might 


NATIONAL  PARKS  401 

be  allowed  to  come  up  to  the  principal  hotels  and  go 
no  farther.  If  it  is  allowed  to  go  so  far  as  that,  it  will 
soon  be  allowed  to  go  wherever  else  there  is  a  road 
to  bear  it.  Do  not  let  the  serpent  enter  Eden  at  all. 
Our  friends  who  possess  automobiles  are  numerous, 
wealthy,  and  powerful,  but  as  all  the  rest  of  the  North 
American  Continent  is  open  to  them  they  are  not 
gravely  injured  when  one  valley,  besides  parts  of 
Mount  Desert  Island,  is  reserved  for  those  who  walk 
or  ride.  It  is  no  intolerable  hardship  to  be  required 
to  forgo  in  one  spot  a  convenience  which  none  of  us 
had  twenty  years  ago  and  which  the  great  majority  of 
our  fellow-creatures  cannot  afford  to  pay  for  now.  At 
present  the  railway  comes  to  an  end  some  twelve  miles 
away  from  the  entrance  of  the  Yosemite  Park,  and 
the  drive  up  to  it  behind  horses  gives  far  more  pleas- 
ure than  a  journey  by  rail  or  motor  car  possibly  could. 
There  are  plenty  of  roads  elsewhere  for  the  lovers  of 
speed  and  noise,  without  intruding  on  these  few  places 
where  the  wood  nymphs  and  the  water  nymphs  ought 
to  be  allowed  to  remain  in  untroubled  seclusion,  and 
their  true  worshippers  to  have  the  landscape  to  them- 
selves. 

Let  me  pay  a  tribute  to  the  taste  and  judgment 
with  which,  as  it  seemed  to  me  when  I  visited  the 
valley  in  1909,  the  park  and  the  hotels  in  the  Yo- 
semite were  being  managed.  There  were  no  offensive 
signs,  no  advertisements  of  medicines,  no  other  external 
disfigurements  to  excite  horror,  and  the  inns  were  all 

3D 


402      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

of  moderate  size,  plain  but  sufficiently  comfortable  and 
not  more  than  two  stories  high.  I  earnestly  hope 
that  the  administration  will  always  be  continued  on 
these  lines,  with  this  same  regard  for  landscape  beauty. 
Now,  a  word  about  additional  parks.  Although  you 
have  set  a  wholesome  example  in  creating  those  I  have 
mentioned  and  some  others,  there  are  still  other  places 
where  National  Parks  are  wanted.  There  is  a  splendid 
region  in  the  Alleghanies,  a  region  of  beautiful  forests, 
where  the  tulip  trees  lift  their  tall,  smooth  shafts 
and  graceful  heads  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  or  more 
into  the  air,  a  mountain  land  on  the  borders  of 
North  Carolina  and  East  Tennessee,  with  romantic 
river  valleys  and  hills  clothed  with  luxuriant  woods, 
primitive  forests  standing  as  they  stood  before  the 
white  man  drove  the  Indians  away,  high  lawns  filled 
with  flowers  and  traversed  by  sparkling  brooks,  con- 
taining everything  to  delight  the  heart  of  the  lover 
of  nature.  It  would  be  a  fine  thing  to  have  a  tract 
of  three  or  four  hundred  thousand  acres  set  apart 
here  for  the  benefit  of  the  people  of  the  South  and 
Middle  Atlantic  States,  for  whom  it  is  a  far  cry 
to  the  Rockies.  Then  you  ought  to  have  one  or 
two  additional  parks  in  Colorado  and  Montana 
also.  As  regards  the  Northeast  Atlantic  States,  what 
seems  to  be  most  wanted  is  to  preserve  the  forests  of 
the  White  and  Green  Mountains.  Perhaps  it  is  not 
necessary  to  set  apart  in  that  country  a  National  Park 
in  the  same  sense  as  that  which  might  be  thought 


NATIONAL  PARKS  403 

requisite  in  the  Alleghanies,  because  the  mountains  are 
so  high  and  rocky,  and  so  little  ground  is  suitable  for 
cultivation  on  the  steeper  slopes,  that  it  is  not  likely 
they  will  be  inclosed,  and  probably  hardly  necessary 
that  a  public  authority  should  step  in  to  save  them. 
But  in  some  parts  of  the  White  Mountains,  for  instance, 
it  would  be  an  excellent  thing  to  create  large  forest 
reserves,  where  the  trees  should  be  under  protection 
of  the  National  or  State  Government,  being  cut  by 
them  as  required,  and  the  forests  replanted  as  they  are 
cut.  Recent  legislation  has  already  made  a  beginning 
with  this  good  work.  The  sale  of  the  timber  would 
more  than  cover  the  costs  of  management  and  the  in- 
terest on  the  purchase  money.  In  this  way  you  would 
keep  a  place  where  the  beauty  of  the  woodlands  would 
remain  for  all  generations,  and  where  they  would  be 
so  cared  for  that  the  present  danger  of  forest  fires 
would  be  averted. 

There  is  one  question  that  comes  very  near  to  you 
in  Baltimore,  and  also  to  us  in  Washington,  on  which  I 
would  like  to  speak  a  word.  You  know  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  charming  forest  country  between  Baltimore 
and  Washington.  A  good  deal  of  it  is  forest  of  the 
second  growth,  some  few  small  bits  of  it  are  of  the  first 
growth ;  but  even  that  of  the  second  contains  a  great 
number  of  beautiful,  fine-grown  trees.  The  land  is 
of  no  considerable  value,  and  I  believe  it  could  now 
be  purchased  at  a  low  price.  I  have  heard  it  sug- 
gested that  thirty-six  dollars  an  acre  would  be  an  aver- 


404      UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

age  price  for  the  land,  on  which  a  great  quantity  of 
timber  remains.  Having  frequently  taken  walking 
excursions  from  Washington  into  the  country  from 
ten  to  fifteen  or  twenty  miles  around  the  city,  I  have 
been  struck  with  the  beauty  and  profusion  of  the 
wild  flowers.  The  flora  of  that  region,  being  a  sort  of 
blend  of  the  flora  of  the  North  Atlantic  States  with 
some  of  the  plants  and  flowers  which  belong  to  the 
South  Atlantic  region,  is  of  great  interest  to  the  scien- 
tific botanist.  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  and  Washing- 
ton are  all  swiftly  growing  cities.  What  could  be  done 
better  for  the  inhabitants  of  these  three  cities  than  to 
secure  for  their  enjoyment  a  large  part  of  this  forest 
land  and  set  it  apart,  forever  free  from  private  purposes 
or  use  of  agriculture,  and  keep  it  as  a  forest  reserve, 
to  be  managed  scientifically,  so  that  it  should  pay  for 
the  expense  of  working  it  by  the  timber  which  could 
be  cut  and  sold  on  well-planned  scientific  lines,  and 
should  afford  a  place  where  people  could  go  and  wan- 
der about  at  their  own  sweet  will,  just  as  the  old 
settlers  did  when  they  first  came  here  ?  Here  the  auto- 
mobile would  do  no  harm  on  the  main  roads,  because 
there  would  be  plenty  of  byways  and  forest  footpaths. 
If  the  automobilist  wants  to  be  whirled  along  the 
roads,  let  him  have  his  way,  but  keep  wide  sylvan 
spaces  where  those  who  seek  quiet  and  the  sense  of 
communing  with  nature  can  go  out  in  the  early  morn- 
ing from  the  city  and  spend  a  whole  day  enjoying  one 
spot  after  another  where  nature  has  provided  her 


NATIONAL  PARKS  405 

simple  joys,  mingled  shade  and  sunlight  falling  on  the 
long  vistas  of  the  forest,  the  ripple  and  the  murmur  of 
a  streamlet,  the  rustling  of  the  leaves,  and  the  birds 
singing  among  the  branches.  These  gifts  can  here  be 
offered  to  the  man  condemned  to  spend  most  of  his 
life  in  cities,  and  when  nature  has  provided  them  in 
such  bountiful  measure  ought  not  the  opportunity  to 
be  taken  to  secure  them? 

Shall  we  who  make  these  plans  be  accused  of  treat- 
ing this  subject  in  a  sentimental  way?  Well,  I  con- 
fess these  arguments  are  not  addressed  to  those  who 
think  that  man  lives  by  bread  alone,  or  who  recognize 
no  values  except  those  measured  by  dollars  and  cents. 
It  is  because  the  members  of  this  Association  are  not 
of  that  mind  that  such  considerations  are  submitted. 
A  century  hence  there  will  be  in  North  America,  if 
things  go  on  as  they  are  going  on  now,  far  more  people, 
far  more  lovers  of  nature,  and  also  fewer  places  in 
which  nature  can  be  enjoyed. 

Now  let  me  try  to  give  some  logical  quality  to 
these  rambling  reflections  by  submitting  a  few  propo- 
sitions in  order. 

The  world  seems  likely  to  last  a  long,  long  time,  and 
we  ought  to  make  provision  for  the  future. 

The  population  of  the  world  is  increasing  rapidly, 
and  most  rapidly  in  North  America. 

The  taste  for  natural  beauty  is  also  increasing,  and, 
as  we  hope,  will  continue  to  increase. 

The  places  of  scenic  beauty  do  not  increase,  but,  on 


406     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

the  contrary,  are  in  danger  of  being  reduced  in  num- 
ber and  diminished  in  quantity.  This  is  due  chiefly 
to  the  accumulation  of  wealth.  Forests  are  cut 
down,  water  power  is  appropriated,  rich  men  buy 
up  tracts  of  land  and  frequently  seek  to  exclude  the 
public  from  them.  Accordingly,  no  better  service  can  be 
rendered  to  the  masses  of  the  people  than  to  preserve 
for  their  delight  wide  spaces  of  fine  scenery. 

We  must  carefully  guard  what  we  have  got,  and 
must  extend  the  policy  which  you  have  wisely  adopted 
in  creating  your  existing  National  Parks,  by  acquiring 
and  preserving  further  areas  for  the  perpetual  enjoy- 
ment of  the  people. 

Let  us  think  of  the  future.  We  are  trustees  for  the 
future.  We  are  not  here  for  ourselves  alone.  All 
these  gifts  were  not  given  to  us  to  be  used  by  one  gen- 
eration, or  with  the  thought  of  one  generation  only 
before  our  minds.  We  are  the  heirs  of  those  who  have 
gone  before,  and  charged  with  the  duty  we  owe  to 
those  who  come  after,  and  there  is  no  duty  which  seems 
more  clearly  incumbent  on  us  than  that  of  handing  on 
to  them  undiminished  opportunities  and  facilities  for 
the  enjoyment  of  some  of  the  best  gifts  that  the 
Creator  has  bestowed  upon  his  children. 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  SOCIETY  or  NEW  YORK, 
DECEMBER  14,  1912. 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED 
STATES 

ADDRESS  TO  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  SOCIETY  OF  NEW  YORK, 
DECEMBER  14,  1912. 

IT  is  a  real  pleasure  to  be  the  guest  of  The  Penn- 
sylvania Society.  Every  student  of  history  must  be 
profoundly  interested  in  the  annals  of  the  State  of 
Pennsylvania,  not  merely  in  respect  of  its  famous 
founder,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  Englishmen  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  but  also  because  it  is  in  a 
sense  typical  of  this  whole  country.  Your  State 
is  remarkable  for  having  been  from  very  early  days 
the  seat  of  three  different  elements  of  population 
which  have  gradually  become  blent,  yet  not  so  blent 
as  to  lose  traces  of  their  former  diversity.  Three  sets  of 
colonists  long  ago  entered  and  settled  down  in  and  made 
the  prosperity  and  greatness  of  Pennsylvania  in  its 
formative  years,  just  as  in  days  far  later  many  different 
races  came  hither  across  the  sea  and  added  themselves 
to  the  original  Anglo-Saxon  population  who  had  been 
the  first  settlers  of  this  eastern  coast  of  North  America. 
Here  in  Pennsylvania  you  had  the  English  Quakers, 
then  the  Germans,  who  came  in  a  little  later,  many  of 
them  also  pious  men  belonging  to  various  German 

409 


410     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

sects,  and,  lastly,  the  Scotch-Irish,  people  very  unlike 
the  other  two,  except  in  their  being  also  pious,  though 
in  a  quite  different  way.  The  Quakers  and  the 
Germans  fulfilled  the  dictum  that  the  meek  shall 
inherit  the  earth,  because  they  took  up  and  retained 
all  the  best  lands.  The  Scotch-Irish,  who  came  last, 
were  obliged  to  content  themselves  with  the  moun- 
tains and  the  Indians,  and  they  braced  themselves 
to  deal  with  both.  They  developed  a  manly,  bold,  pug- 
nacious type  of  pioneer  and  frontiersman,  and  they 
have  retained  the  old  character  in  your  western  hills 
just  like  their  relatives  in  the  northeastern  parts  of 
Ireland.  Plenty  of  the  old  combative  spirit  in  both 
regions.  They  had  a  lively  time  in  early  Pennsylvania, 
for  these  three  sections  were  divided  not  only  by  politi- 
cal feelings  and  by  agricultural  rivalries,  but  also  by  reli- 
gious and  ecclesiastical  differences.  In  those  days  diver- 
gences of  doctrine  cut  pretty  deep  and  roused  far  more 
feeling  than  they  would  to-day,  even  in  the  pacific 
breasts  of  members  of  the  Society  of  Friends.  An 
occasion  is  recorded  on  which  a  Quaker  went  so  far 
that  he  was  with  difficulty  restrained  from  discharging 
a  gun,  which  unluckily  happened  to  be  in  his  hands, 
into  the  body  of  a  Presbyterian,  having  apparently 
been  incensed  by  an  intimation  on  the  part  of  the 
Calvinist  that  predestination  was  going  to  give  that 
particular  Quaker  no  prospect  of  felicity  in  the  world 
to  come. 
I  must,  however,  pass  away  from  the  State  of  Penn- 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED   STATES     411 

sylvania  and  its  fortunes,  to  the  subject  allotted  to  me 
—  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  ;  a  small 
subject  indeed,  is  it  not  ?  and  easy  to  deal  with  in  the 
few  minutes  at  my  command. 

Let  me  begin  by  one  remark,  about  which  there  will 
be  no  difference  of  opinion :  It  was  a  most  extraordi- 
nary body  of  men  that  gathered  together  one  hun- 
dred a  ad  twenty-five  years  ago  to  frame  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States.  Never  did  such  a  group  of 
brilliant  and  powerful  intellects,  men  trained  by  an 
experience  of  affairs,  assemble  together  .for  so  great  an 
undertaking  as  the  framing  of  the  Constitution  for  a 
nation.  And  the  best  proof  of  the  success  which  at- 
tended their  efforts  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
the  Constitution  which  they  framed  for  a  nation  that 
then  only  a  little  exceeded  3,000,000  people  has  been 
found  now  to  fit  the  needs  of  93,000,000.  It  may  not 
fit  those  needs  perfectly,  but  it  is  extraordinary  that  it 
should  fit  them  at  all. 

In  that  group  there  were  three  men,  Washington, 
Franklin,  and  Hamilton,  whose  fame  belongs  to  the 
history  of  the  world,  and  one  of  those  three,  Benjamin 
Franklin,  came  as  a  delegate  from  the  State  of  Penn- 
sylvania. Among  the  others,  eminent  men,  even  if 
they  did  not  attain  unto  those  first  three,  one  of  the 
most  eminent  came  also  as  a  delegate  from  the  State 
of  Pennsylvania.  I  mean  James  Wilson ;  a  Scotsman 
from  Fife  who  had  few  equals  and  possibly  no  superior 
in  that  Convention,  as  respects  either  the  acuteness 


412     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

of  his  mind,  or  his  penetration  and  sagacity ;  a  man  to 
whom  some  of  the  best  features  of  the  Constitution 
were  due,  and  who,  by  his  speeches  in  your  Pennsyl- 
vania convention  held  to  consider  the  draft  prepared 
by  the  Convention,  added  an  illuminating  commentary 
upon  many  provisions  of  the  Constitution,  and  no  doubt 
contributed  materially  to  its  adoption,  both  in  your 
State  and  in  the  other  States  of  the  Union. 

Now,  I  am  under  certain  restraints  here.  I  re- 
member a  time  in  England  when  young  Liberal  orators 
used  to  glorify  the  British  Constitution  as  "  the  para- 
gon of  the  world,"  "the  perfection  of  human  wisdom," 
nor  did  the  other  party  abound  any  less  in  praise,  for 
each  party  claimed  that  the  Constitution  embodied  its 
own  distinctive  principles.  So  here  too  both  parties  and 
both  sections  of  the  country  vied  in  their  admiration 
of  your  Constitution,  for  both  insisted  that  the  ven- 
erable instrument,  if  correctly  interpreted,  supported 
its  own  tenets.  But  in  England  those  paeans  of  praise 
are  now  seldom  heard ;  and  here  in  America  the  Con- 
stitution seems  to  be  drifting  down  the  stream  of  time 
into  the  neighbourhood  of  the  icebergs  of  controversy. 
Accordingly  I  must  not  allow  myself  to  approach  any 
questions  which  are  becoming  issues  between  parties.  I 
cannot  leap  over  the  wire  fence  which  incloses  the  rep- 
resentative of  another  country  and,  like  my  distin- 
guished friend,  the  Attorney-General,  prance  and  gallop 
far  and  wide  in  the  open  plains  of  politics.  From  any 
discussion  of  whether  and  how  the  Constitution  ought 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  413 

to  be  amended,  I  must  refrain,  but  I  am  free  to  speak 
of  what  it  has  been  in  the  past,  and  may  examine  the 
working  of  certain  usages  that  have  grown  up  under  it 
which  neither  party  is  concerned  to  defend  or  to  attack 
and  which  are  now  exposing  it  to  unmerited  censure. 

The  whole  history  of  your  country  since  1789  has  been 
a  commentary  upon  the  services  rendered  by  the  Con- 
stitution. The  greatest  of  all  the  services  it  could  ren- 
der and  did  render,  was  the  spirit  which  it  implanted  in 
the  hearts  of  your  people.  Perhaps  I  ought  not  to  say 
"implanted,"  for  the  spirit  was  already  there,  and  the 
function  of  the  Constitution  was  to  confirm  and  develop 
it.  Your  ancestors  brought  from  England  the  prin- 
ciple of  deference  for  law,  and  the  sentiment  which 
desired  to  unite  Liberty  with  Order,  but  that  spirit 
was  immensely  strengthened  and  its  roots  deepened  by 
the  provisions  of  the  Constitution,  which  combined, 
as  no  instrument  had  ever  done  before,  a  respect  for 
the  settled  rule  of  law,  with  a  recognition  of  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  people.  It  showed  how  the  popular 
will  can  express  itself  through  prescribed  forms,  with 
such  due  regard  for  and  observance  of  legal  methods 
as  to  avoid  the  dangers  of  sudden  impulses  and  hasty 
action,  while  also  in  such  a  way  as  ultimately  to  give 
complete  effect  to  the  sober  and  deliberate  purpose  of 
the  people. 

Some  critics,  both  here  and  in  Europe,  have  made  it  a 
reproach  against  the  Constitution  that  it  did  not 
avert  the  War  of  Secession,  and  others  have  gone  so 


414     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

far  as  to  suggest  that  its  failing  to  either  recognize  or 
deny  the  right  of  a  State  or  States  to  secede  was  itself 
a  proximate  cause  of  the  war  by  giving  each  party  an 
arguable  legal  case.  To  this  criticism  the  answer  is 
that  if  such  a  provision  had  been  placed  in  the  Consti- 
tution there  might  probably  never  have  been  any 
Constitution  at  all.  Whether  any  legal  instrument 
could  have  prevented  a  split  and  a  conflict  where  eco- 
nomic differences  were  so  marked,  where  each  section 
of  the  nation  misunderstood  the  other,  and  where  pas- 
sion had  in  one  of  them  risen  to  white  heat,  may  well 
be  doubted.  Legal  forms  may  do  much,  but  cannot 
do  everything.  So  far  as  we  can  now  judge,  there  was 
only  one  thing  would  have  enabled  the  South  and  the 
North  to  hold  together,  and  that  thing  was  unattain- 
able. It  has  probably  struck  some  of  you  that  had  the 
United  States  remained  in  political  connection  with  the 
mother  country,  there  would  have  been  no  Civil  War. 
South  and  North  fought  because  there  was  no  one  to 
mediate  between  and  try  to  reconcile  them.  Had  they 
been  part  of  a  British  nation  there  might  have  been  — 
indeed,  would  almost  certainly  have  been  —  mediation. 
The  question  of  slavery,  if  indeed  slavery  had  been  still 
in  existence,  would  no  doubt  have  been  a  question  for 
themselves  to  settle,  for  long  before  1861  they  would 
have  been  enjoying  a  self-government  at  least  as  large 
as  Canada  and  Australia  now  enjoy  under  the  British 
flag.  But  as  members  of  one  British  people,  both 
North  and  South  would  have  been  kept  in  union  as 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED   STATES    415 

parts  of  a  larger  whole,  and  the  influence  of  the  rest 
of  the  British  people  at  home  would  have  been  suffi- 
cient to  soften  antagonisms  and  bring  about  a  peaceable 
solution. 

The  Constitution  could  not  avert  the  Civil  War,  but 
it  maintained  the  ideal  of  national  unity  all  through  the 
Civil  War,  and  it  enabled  the  wounds  which  the  war  had 
made  to  be  subsequently  healed  with  a  rapidity  and 
completeness  which  amazed  the  world.  During  and  for 
some  time  after  the  Civil  War  it  rendered  a  service 
such  as  no  legal  instrument  had  ever  rendered  to  a  peo- 
ple before.  You  had  enormous  difficulties  then.  The 
difficulties  during  the  war,  when  it  was  all  that  the 
President  could  do  to  avoid  putting  a  strain  on  the 
Constitution,  were  hardly  more  alarming  than  those 
that  came  later  in  that  sad  and  troublous  period  of 
reconstruction  through  which  your  Southern  brothers 
passed.  The  situation  would  have  been  almost  hope- 
less but  for  the  fact  that  the  Constitution  laid  down 
the  lines  upon  which  each  Southern  State  should  be 
ultimately  restored  to  self-government  and  again  take 
its  place  as  a  self-governing  member  of  the  Union. 
When  Reconstruction  was  over,  and  when,  in  and  after 
1877,  more  normal  relations  were  reestablished  in  the 
South,  the  Constitution  again  became  a  rallying  point 
for  the  patriotic  sentiment  of  the  whole  people  and 
for  their  devotion  to  the  principles  which  had  originally 
made  it  strong  and  your  nation  great.  Your  National 
unity,  never  so  conspicuous  or  so  firmly  entrenched  as 


4i6     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

it  is  to-day,  is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  you  all  have 
revered  and  trusted  and  walked  by  your  now  venerable 
Constitution. 

True  it  is  that  all  constitutions  must  needs  be  sus- 
ceptible of  such  amendments  or  developments  as  are 
needed  to  adapt  them  to  the  changing  circumstances 
which  time  brings  with  them.  As  Bacon  says,  "  That 
which  man  changeth  not  for  the  better  Time  changeth 
for  the  worse."  But  you  will  also  observe  that  all 
constitutions,  and  all  systems  of  free  governments 
everywhere,  require  something  to  steady  them.  Now, 
we  in  England,  who  have  no  documentary  consti- 
tution placed  above  the  other  laws  of  the  country, 
where  every  arrangement  of  the  government  can 
be  at  any  moment  changed  by  the  power  of  the 
people  acting  through  their  representatives  in  Parlia- 
ment, we  in  England  have  steadying  forces  in  the 
existence  of  long  traditions,  and  of  powerful  classes 
who  have  held  great  influence  throughout  the  whole 
nation.  In  France  there  has  been  and  is  a  steady- 
ing influence  in  the  existence  of  a  large  number  of 
small  landed  proprietors  attached  to  the  rights  of 
property.  In  Germany  a  similar  influence  may  be 
found,  not  only  in  the  presence  of  a  strong  monarchy 
and  of  a  landholding  class  which  has  commanded  the 
deference  of  the  people  for  centuries,  but  also  in  an 
exceedingly  able  and  highly  trained  civil  service, 
which  administers  public  affairs.  You  in  this  country 
have  neither  the  social  classes  of  Continental  Europe 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES     417 

nor  have  you  the  power  of  a  civil  service  like  that  of 
Germany.  But  as  you  also  need  some  steadying  ele- 
ment, you  have  found  it  in  the  respect  for  your  Con- 
stitution. It  has  made  your  traditions.  It  has  been 
revered  as  a  sort  of  palladium  of  ordered  liberty. 
Whatever  changes  you  now  think  fit  to  make  in 
your  Constitution  you  will,  I  am  sure,  never  forget 
that  ballast  as  well  as  sails  are  needed  if  a  ship  is  to 
pursue  with  safety  her  course  over  seas  that  are  some- 
times stormy. 

There  are,  as  you  all  know,  two  chief  parts  or 
branches  of  the  Federal  Constitution  —  that  which 
creates  the  system  of  National  Government,  with  its 
three  departments,  and  that  which  defines  the  relation 
of  the  National  Government  to  the  governments  and 
people  of  the  States.  Of  these  two  the  former  part, 
which  establishes  the  frame  of  National  Government, 
has  been  criticized,  and  in  some  points  unfavourably, 
both  by  your  own  statesmen  and  by  foreign  observers, 
much  more  than  has  the  latter  part,  which  determines 
the  relations  between  the  National  Government  and  the 
States.  Now  let  me  ask  you  to  note  that  these  criti- 
cisms upon  the  practical  working  of  the  frame  of 
national  government  are  really  in  the  main  criticisms 
not  of  the  Constitution  itself  but  of  usages  which  have 
grown  up  under  it  but  are  no  part  of  it  and  could  be 
changed  at  any  moment  by  Congress  or  by  the  action 
of  the  people  themselves. 

One  of  the  complaints  most  frequently  heard  is  that 

2E 


418     UNIVERSITY  AND   HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

members  of  Congress  have  been  tending  to  become  too 
much  mere  local  delegates,  rather  than  members  of  the 
great  council  of  the  Nation,  and  that  they  are  so  active 
in  furthering  the  interest  each  of  his  own  constituency 
and  his  own  State,  that  they  think  too  little,  and  care 
too  little,  for  the  general  interests  of  the  whole  people, 
though  it  is  itself  more  than  ever  One  People.  If  the 
facts  are  as  these  censors  assert,  —  and  you  can  judge 
better  than  I  whether  the  censors  are  right,  —  what  is 
the  cause  ?  Not  any  provision  of  the  Constitution  but 
the  habit  which  has  prevailed  and  prevails  to-day,  of 
confining  the  choice  of  a  member  of  Congress  to  persons 
resident  in  the  particular  Congressional  district,  and  the 
habit  which  the  people  of  the  district  have  formed  of  ex- 
pecting Congress  to  appropriate  money  for  local  pur- 
poses. Such  usages  are  no  parts  of  democracy,  for  there 
are  other  democratic  countries  in  which  they  do  not 
prevail.  They  inevitably  tend  to  narrow  a  member's 
views  as  well  as  his  activities,  and  they  prevent  an 
able  man  who  by  some  turn  of  the  political  tide  has 
lost  his  seat  in  the  place  where  he  resides  from  obtaining 
a  seat  elsewhere.  Nearly  all  your  own  leading  men,  as 
well  as  foreign  observers,  think  that  you  lose  immensely 
by  the  exclusion  from  Congress  of  so  many  of  your 
strongest  intellects,  and  they  regret  the  persistence 
of  the  habit.  Take  the  case  of  such  a  statesman, 
eminent  both  by  his  talents  and  by  the  purity  and  eleva- 
tion of  his  character,  as  the  late  Mr.  Carl  Schurz,  who 
after  he  left  Missouri  to  settle  in  New  York  City  could 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED   STATES     419 

•never  find  entrance  to  Congress.  In  Britain,  more 
democratic  in  most  respects  than  this  country,  nearly 
all  the  eminent  statesmen  of  the  last  sixty  years  have 
represented  constituencies  in  which  they  did  not  re- 
side, and  represented  them  quite  as  efficiently  as  resi- 
dents could  have  done.  This  is  common  in  Australia 
also,  a  country  more  democratic  than  either  the  United 
States  or  Great  Britain. 

Another  feature  of  the  present  working  of  your 
National  Government  which  I  have  heard  constantly 
criticized  by  thoughtful  American  statesmen  is  that 
the  separation  of  the  legislative  and  executive  depart- 
ments has  been  carried  too  far  by  the  custom  which 
does  not  allow  the  ministers  of  the  President  access 
to  the  floor  of  Congress  to  speak  and  to  be  interro- 
gated there.  Now  this  custom  has  grown  up  inde- 
pendently of  the  Constitution.  It  is  not  a  part  of  the 
Constitution,  and  Congress  has  therefore  the  power 
at  any  time  to  alter  if  it  should  think  fit.  Foreign 
observers  who  are  accustomed  to  the  methods  of 
the  free  countries  of  Europe  think  that  you  are  sac- 
rificing a  valuable  means  of  bringing  your  legislative 
and  your  executive  authorities  into  a  natural  and 
easy  and  constant  harmony  by  your  forbidding  them 
to  come  together  in  the  way  I  have  mentioned.  They 
are  allowed  so  to  come  together  in  Switzerland.  Swit- 
zerland has  a  federal  constitution  like  yours.  Switzer- 
land, like  you,  does  not  permit  the  members  of  the 
Administration,  which  there  consists  of  a  body  of 


420     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

seven  persons  called  the  Federal  Council,  to  be  elected 
to  and  sit  in  either  House  of  its  federal  legislature ;  but 
it  permits  them  and  encourages  them  to  be  present  in 
either  House,  and  when  I  have  been  attending  the 
debates  of  the  federal  legislature  in  Switzerland  I  have 
seen  the  members  of  the  Federal  Council,  sometimes 
in  the  one  House,  sometimes  in  the  other,  interrogated 
by  members  upon  questions  relating  to  the  adminis- 
tration of  their  departments,  answering  those  questions, 
giving  the  fullest  information  upon  every  executive 
act  done  or  perhaps  even  contemplated  by  them,  and 
at  the  same  time  addressing  the  members  of  the  legis- 
lature upon  the  measures  that  were  pending  there, 
stating  their  views,  telling  them  what  was  wanted,  in 
the  way  of  money  or  otherwise,  to  increase  the  efficiency 
of  the  several  executive  departments,  and  answering 
any  objections  which  the  members  of  the  legislature 
could  advance.  No  Swiss  doubts  that  such  a  plan  is 
for  the  good  of  Switzerland.  The  Swiss  Government, 
take  it  all  in  all,  seems  to  be  the  most  successful  and 
one  of  the  most  stable  among  the  democratic  govern- 
ments of  the  world,  and  could  not  possibly  work  as 
smoothly  and  successfully  as  it  does  work  but  for  this 
practice  —  and,  as  you  know,  the  plan  of  admitting 
Cabinet  Ministers  to  speak  in  Congress  has  been  rec- 
ommended by  many  of  your  own  statesmen,  as,  for 
instance,  by  President  Garfield. 

Any  proposal  for  the  admission  of  Cabinet  Ministers 
to  the  floor  of  either  House,  to  be  questioned  there 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES    421 

and  to  speak  there,  well  deserves  to  be  considered 
as  a  possible  improvement  in  the  conduct  of  busi- 
ness by  Congress.  To  suggest  that  the  Constitution 
itself  ought  to  be  so  altered  as  to  permit  ministers 
to  be  elected  to  and  vote  in  Congress  would  be  quite 
another  matter,  for  it  would  raise  different  and  far 
wider  issues.  It  would  mean  a  change  in  your  whole 
scheme  of  government.  Our  English  system  —  what 
we  call  our  Cabinet  and  Parliamentary  System  —  is  no 
doubt  a  far  more  prompt  and  a  far  more  effective  way 
of  bringing  the  will  of  the  people  to  bear  upon  the 
government  than  your  system  is  here.  As  I  have 
already  observed,  we  in  Great  Britain  are  in  reality  far 
more  of  a  democracy  "than  you  are.  The  will  of  the 
people  declared  in  an  election  of  the  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  is  able  to  act  more  quickly,  more 
promptly,  with  a  more  tremendous  and  compelling 
force,  in  Britain  than  it  can  here.  We  do  not  have 
your  checks  and  balances.  But  it  may  well  be  doubted 
whether  the  British  system,  however  it  may  work  with 
I  us,  would  be  a  safe  one  for  a  country  so  vast  and  varied 
in  its  parts  as  yours.  There  is,  however,  every  reason 
to  think  that  Congress  itself  would  find  a  great  advan- 
tage in  having  the  Ministers  of  the  President  before  it 
on  the  floor,  so  that  it  could  address  questions  to  them, 
as  ministers  are  daily  questioned  in  our  Parliament. 
British  ministers  are  obliged  to  tell  Parliament  every- 
thing that  is  being  done  in  the  course  of  our  adminis- 
tration which  it  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  public 


422     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

service  to  disclose.  They  must  answer  all  questions  put 
to  them  about  what  they  are  doing,  and  how  they  are 
doing  it,  and  why  they  are  doing  it.  It  is  good  for  them. 
Like  other  ministers,  I  have,  when  a  member  of  the 
British  cabinet,  sometimes  found  the  process  tiresome. 
But  I  never  doubted  that  it  was  a  good  thing  for 
everybody  concerned.  Ministers  are  all  the  better  for 
having  to  stand  that  ordeal.  You  here  would  soon 
find  the  benefit  of  it.  Every  minister  would  feel  it  to 
be  an  advantage  and  a  help  to  him  in  his  work  if  he 
were  able,  when  his  departmental  experience  has  shown 
him  that  some  measure  is  urgently  needed,  to  come  to 
Congress  and  argue  the  matter  out  with  either  House 
on  its  own  floor  and  tell  them,  not  by  written  words, 
but  by  the  spoken  word,  which  is  far  more  effective, 
why  he  thinks  the  measure  is  needed  and  what  are  the 
arguments  by  which  he  would  support  it.  And  you 
can  all  see  how  much  Congress  would  gain  by  the  more 
thorough  knowledge  of  the  workings  and  the  needs  of 
the  departments  which  it  would  gain. 

Others  conceive  that  the  special  functions  of  the 
Senate  or  perhaps  the  machinery  by  which  these 
functions  are  exercised,  require  to  be  reconsidered  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  when  they  were  assigned  to  it 
the  Senate  had  only  twenty-six  members,  whereas  it 
has  now  ninety-six.  If  anything  of  that  kind  needs 
to  be  done,  it  could  probably  be  done  without  altering 
the  Constitution,  just  as  a  usage  which  had  come  to  be 
recognized  by  common  consent  as  being  one  of  the 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES    423 

greatest  evils  in  the  working  of  the  National  Govern- 
ment was  dealt  with.  I  refer  to  the  Spoils  System. 
That  system  arose  outside  the  Constitution.  It  has 
been  now  much  reduced  and  indeed  seems  likely  to  be 
soon  expunged  by  measures  requiring  no  change  in  the 
Constitution.  So  also  that  scheme  of  national  nomi- 
nating conventions,  which  now  seems  likely  to  be 
superseded  by  a  system  of  nominating  primaries,  arose 
altogether  outside  the  Constitution,  and  had  never 
even  any  statutory  character. 

As  regards  the  other  part  of  your  Constitution,  that 
which  concerns  the  relations  of  the  States  with  the 
National  Government,  you  may  rest  happy  in  the 
thought  that  it  has  received  the  almost  unqualified 
admiration  of  the  whole  world.  I  will  not  say  that 
there  may  not  be  minor  points  in  which  it  is  susceptible 
of  improvement.  Probably  there  are  some  directions 
in  which  the  progress  of  time  has  made  it  desirable  to 
expand  a  little  the  legislative  authority  of  Congress. 
Many  have  argued,  for  instance,  in  favour  of  extending 
that  authority  to  the  establishment  of  a  uniform  law 
of  marriage  and  divorce.  Others  would  extend  the 
range  of  federal  authority  over  railroads,  and  would 
recognize  in  the  National  Government  a  much  longer 
power  of  creating  and  supervising  corporations.  Others 
have  indicated  the  need  for  some  more  prompt  and 
effective  method  than  now  exists  of  securing  the  due 
observance  by  each  and  every  State  of  treaty  obliga- 
tions undertaken  by  the  National  Government.  There 


424     UNIVERSITY  AND  HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES 

may  be  points  in  which  the  State  authorities  them- 
selves could  be  induced  to  desire  that  it  should  be 
more  easy  to  pass  uniform  legislation  for  the  whole 
country. 

Still,  looking  at  the  general  federal  scheme  in  a 
broad  way,  can  anything  be  more  clear,  can  anything 
be  more  rational  in  theory  or  more  convenient  in  appli- 
cation to  practice  than  the  general  principles  by  which 
the  relations  of  the  States  and  the  National  Govern- 
ment have  been  fixed  and  determined  ?  The  prin- 
ciples are  as  clear,  as  philosophically  conceived,  and  as 
precisely  expressed  as  it  is  possible  for  the  human  in- 
tellect to  have  conceived  and  expressed  them,  and  they 
have  been  worked  out  by  your  successive  Administra- 
tions, by  Congress,  and  most  of  all  by  your  Judicial 
Bench,  with  an  infinite  and  admirable  delicacy  in  detail. 
The  best  testimony  to  the  excellence  of  your  system  is 
to  be  found  in  the  influence  that  it  has  had  upon  other 
countries.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  your  Consti- 
tution and  ours  have  been,  in  their  general  lines,  the 
patterns  of  all  modern  free  constitutions.  The  British 
Constitution  has  been  taken  as  being  more  or  less  a 
model  by  all  the  free  governments  that  have  been 
established  in  Europe  and  in  the  British  Colonies 
since  1815.  Your  Constitution  has  been  taken  as  a 
model  —  imperfect  as  some  of  the  reproductions  have 
been  —  by  the  republican  governments  that  have  been 
established  in  every  part  of  the  western  world,  —  that 
is  to  say,  in  South  America  and  in  Central  America,  — 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED   STATES    425 

and  it  has  also  had  a  profound  influence  not  only  on 
the  latest  constitution  of  Switzerland,  that  of  1874, 
but  also  upon  the  federal  constitutions  of  Canada,  of 
Australia,  and  of  South  Africa. 

It  was  the  glory  of  our  two  countries  to  have  held 
the  torch  of  liberty  aloft  in  days  when  there  were 
hardly  any  other  free  governments  in  the  world  and 
when  the  dumb  populations  lay  prostrate  at  the  feet 
of  arbitrary  power.  And  it  has  been  the  glory  of  your 
country  in  later  days  to  render  another  great  service 
to  humanity,  by  showing  how  it  is  possible  to  establish 
and  maintain  national  unity  over  the  vast  spaces  of  a 
continent,  and  at  the  same  time  to  secure  the  fullest 
development  of  self-government  in  State,  in  county, 
and  in  city  over  those  vast  spaces.  That  was  a  problem 
which  would  have  been  deemed  hopeless  and  insoluble 
a  century  and  a  half  ago,  but  the  example  of  your  suc- 
cess has  now  set  your  system  on  high  as  a  beacon  for 
the  world  to  follow.  Your  Constitution,  by  the  ex- 
ample it  has  set  of  its  working  and  by  the  halo  of 
fame  which  now  surrounds  it,  has  become  one  of  the 
vital  and  vitalizing  forces  of  the  modern  world.  Let  us 
honour  the  group  of  illustrious  men  who,  meeting  in 
Philadelphia  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  years  ago, 
rendered  this  incomparable  and  enduring  service  not 
to  you  only,  but  also  to  all  mankind. 


INDEX 


Acton,  Lord,  as  a  historical  writer,  352; 
method  followed  by,  in  reading, 
382-383. 

Alleghany  Mountains,  desirability  of  a 
national  park  in  the,  401—402. 

Allegiance  to  Humanity,  address  on, 
247  ff. 

Allen,  Ethan,  272. 

America,  as  the  land  of  hope  to  Euro- 
peans, 36. 

American  Civic  Association,  address 
before  the,  389  ff . 

American  Institute  of  Architects,  ad- 
dresses to  the,  171  ff.,  181  ff. 

Anarchy,  the  enemy  of  true  liberty,  14 ; 
principle  of  the  Common  Law  which 
is  a  safeguard  against,  46-47. 

Ancient  Literature,  address  on  the  Study 
of,  317  ff. 

Anecdotes,  use  of,  in  public  speaking, 
290—291. 

Antrim,  Scotch-Irish  in,  217-218. 

Appeal  in  criminal  cases  in  England,  64. 

Architecture  and  History,  address  on, 
iSiff. 

Architecture,  advantages  and  disad- 
vantages of  the  profession  of,  184- 
186;  comparison  of,  with  the  study 
of  law,  186-187;  affiliation  of,  with 
history,  187-188;  European  monu- 
ments of,  189-190 ;  present  lack  of 
originality  in,  191-194;  examples 
of,  and  magnificence  of  conception 
of,  in  America,  194-195. 

Aristotle,  critically  exact  spirit  found 
in,  349. 

Armaments,  the  increase  in  military 
and  naval,  251-253. 

Art,  appreciation  of  pleasures  of,  to  be 
derived  from  literary  training,  28-29. 

Athletics,  excessive  passion  for,  at  uni- 
versities, 240-242. 

Augustine,  St.,  129. 


Australia,  national  parks  in,  398. 
Automobiles  in  national  parks,  398-401, 

404. 
Avila,  architecture  of  churches  of,  188. 


B 


Bacon,  Sir  Francis,  3. 

Balboa,  269. 

Bancroft,  George,  345. 

Bible,  decreasing  familiarity  with  the, 
327-328. 

Big  Trees  of  the  Sierra  Nevada,  preser- 
vation of,  395. 

Boniface,  St.,  129. 

Books,  the  choice  of,  367  ff. 

Bracton,  early  legal  writer,  66. 

Brevity  in  speeches,  295-296. 

Bright,  John,  as  a  speaker,  293-294; 

Brooks,  Phillips,  rapidity  of,  in  speak- 
ing, 293. 

Brougham,  Lord,  on  fluency  in  public 
speaking,  284. 

Browning,  Robert,  the  reading  of  works 
of,  374- 

Brunton,  Miss,  Scottish  authoress,  374. 

Buckle's  "History  of  Civilization,"  356. 

Burke,  Edmund,  222. 

Business,  devotion  to,  of  the  normal 
American,  319-320;  the  study  of 
ancient  literature  as  an  offset  to 
absorption  in,  338. 


Cabinet,  the,  in  English  legislative 
system,  94. 

Cabinet  members,  admission  of,  to 
floor  of  houses  of  Congress  recom- 
mended, 419-421. 

Cabots,  the,  269. 

Cairns,  Lord,  a  Scotch-Irishman,  220. 

Cairo,  seat  of  learning  at,  154. 

California,  University  of,  address  de- 
livered at,  227  ff. 


427 


428 


INDEX 


California,  a  country  as  well  as  a  state, 
229;  progress  of,  in  material  develop- 
ment, 231-232;  growth  of  cities  in, 
at  expense  of  the  country,  235 ;  great- 
ness of  the  future  possible  for,  244- 

245- 

Calhoun,  John  C.,   215. 

Calvinism  and  the  Scottish  race,  215. 

"Cambridge  Modern  History,"  lack 
of  superfluous  literary  ornament  in 
the,  351. 

Cambridge  University,  beginnings  of, 
153-154;  ideals  and  aims  of,  157-160. 

Canova,  work  of,  in  sculpture,  174-175 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  tendency  to  public 
speaking  deplored  by,  283 ;  mingled 
scientific  and  literary  treatment  in 
historical  work  of,  352. 

Certainty,  characteristic  of,  in  the  Com- 
mon Law,  47-48. 

Champlain,  Lake,  address  on  the  Ter- 
centenary of  the  Discovery  of,  265  ff. 

Champlain,  Samuel  de,  8;  fine  char- 
acter of,  269—270;  aims  of,  in  ex- 
plorations, 273;  Lake  Champlain 
a  lasting  memorial  to,  279. 

Charlemagne,  character  of  mission 
work  of,  129. 

Chattanooga,  address  before  Missionary 
Convention  at,  125  ff. 

Chicago,  boldness  of  architectural  plans 
for,  195. 

Chicago  University  Address,  15  ff. 

Christianity,  causes  retarding  world- 
wide spread  of,  137  ff.  See  Missions. 

Cicero,  discourse  of,  on  poetry,  284. 

Cities,  life  in,  contrasted  with  life  in 
the  country,  235-236;  necessity  of 
sound  political  conditions  in,  237- 
238;  opportunities  open  to,  for  work 
for  citizens,  238. 

Citizens,  dependence  of  strength  of  a 
state  on  character  of  its,  37-38. 

Civil  War,  effects  of  the  American,  as 
felt  by  Virginia,  n;  the  Constitution 
and  the,  413-416. 

Classical  studies,  the  purpose  of,  319  ff. 

Classics,  time  to  be  devoted  to  reading 
of,  378. 

Clearness  in  public  speaking,  286-287. 

Colonial  type  of  architecture,  192. 

Columba,  St.,  129. 

Columbus,  Christopher,  the  spirit  which 
actuated,  8,  269. 


Common  Law,  address  on  the  Influ- 
ence of  National  Character  and  His- 
torical Environment  on  Develop- 
ment of  the,  41  ff . ;  distinguishing 
qualities  of  the,  45  ff. ;  conception 
of  rights  of  the  individual  citizen, 
45-46;  recognition  of  the  state  and 
the  executive  as  clothed  with  the 
authority  of  the  whole  community, 
46-47 ;  the  principles  of  precision, 
definiteness,  and  exactitude  in,  47- 
49;  respect  for  forms  of  legal  pro- 
ceedings, 49 ;  love  of  justice  and  fond- 
ness for  subtle  distinctions,  49-50; 
influence  on,  of  qualities  of  race  of 
men  who  built  it  up,  51  ff.;  slavery 
under  the,  59-60 ;  the  jury  as  a  feature 
of,  60-62;  technicality  of  the  older, 
62-64;  causes  leading  to  growth 
of  system  of  Equity,  64;  effect  of 
England's  insular  position  on  char- 
acter of,  65-67;  features  of,  derived 
from  Roman  law,  67;  reaction  of, 
on  character  of  people  who  created 
it,  68-69;  importance  of,  for  the 
political  system  of  the  United  States, 
69-70;  essentially  identical  character 
of,  in  England  and  America,  70-71 ; 
a  main  factor  in  the  greatness  of  the 
nation,  71—72. 

Congress,  customs  of,  open  to  discus- 
sion, 417—422. 

Constitution,  Virginia's  part  in  fram- 
ing of,  lo-n  ;  address  on  the,  407  ff. ; 
the  men  who  framed  the,  411-412; 
decrease  in  unqualified  admiration 
for,  412;  influence  of,  in  the  Civil 
War,  413-415 ;  as  a  steadying  ele- 
ment in  the  state,  416-417;  criti- 
cisms of,  in  the  main  criticisms  of 
usages  grown  up  around,  417  ff. 

Cooperative  methods  among  farmers, 
237- 

Corporations,  legislative  difficulties 
raised  by,  97. 

Cortez,  Hernando,  8. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  4. 


D 


Dante,  loss  from  reading,  in  a  trans- 
lation, 335-336. 
Darwin,  Charles,  197. 
Dead  languages,  the  so-called,  28. 


INDEX 


429 


Declaration  of  Independence,  the  Ameri- 
can, log,  no. 

Delivery,  importance  of,  in  public  speak- 
ing, 202-293. 

De  Soto,  269. 

"Dictionary  of  National  Biography," 
style  followed  in,  350-351. 

Digby,  Sir  Kenelm,  71. 

Down,  Scotch-Irish  in,  217. 

Dryden,  amount  of,  necessary  to  read, 

374- 

Dulness,  avoidance  of,  in  public  speak- 
ing, 291-292. 

E 

Ecclesiastical  history,  importance  of 
study  of,  342-343. 

Education,  effects  of  modern  science 
as  felt  by,  17—18;  comparison  of 
value  of  scientific  and  of  literary,  19; 
comparison  of  scientific  and  of  literary, 
as  to  intellectual  enjoyment  in  later 
life,  20  ff. ;  effect  of,  on  man  in  re- 
gard to  politics,  116-117;  effect  of, 
on  public  spirit,  121-122;  devotion 
to  truth  to  be  instilled  by,  122-123, 
168 ;  specialization  in,  303  ff . ;  stimu- 
lation of  curiosity  the  chief  end  of, 
312;  one  main  use  of  a  university 
education  to  arouse  interests  and  tastes 
outside  of  business,  320,  338. 

England,  in  the  i7th  century,  3—4; 
adventurers  and  explorers  of,  con- 
trasted with  those  of  Spain,  9 ;  present- 
day  pride  of,  in  American  republic, 
12-13;  system  of  Parliamentary 
legislation  in,  76  ff. ;  the  universities 
of,  157-160;  restoration  of  ecclesi- 
astical edifices  in,  180-191 ;  honour 
paid  to  the  memory  of  Lincoln  in, 
200,  203 ;  steadying  forces  in  the 
political  structure  of,  416. 

English  land  law,  57. 

Equity,  Common  Law  and  the  system  of, 
64-65. 

Ethics,  as  a  field  for  intellectual  enjoy- 
ment, 26-27. 

Explorers,  distinguishing  qualities  of 
the  early,  8—9,  268-269. 


Fiction,  the  reading  of,  374-377. 
Fluency,    advantages  and  dangers    of, 
in  public  speaking,  284-285. 


Forests,  preservation  of  American,  277, 
395. 

France,  legislative  method  in,  95; 
steadying  forces  in  social  and  political 
structure  of,  416. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  346,  411. 

Freedom,  value  placed  on,  by  settlers 
of  Virginia,  9;  relation  of,  to  a  peo- 
ple's ability  to  govern  themselves, 
114—115;  necessity  of,  in  university 
teaching,  164. 

Freeman,  E.  A.,  345,  348. 

Friendships,  as  one  gam  of  college  life, 
167-168. 

Froude,  J.  A.,  346. 

Fulton,  Robert,  a  Scotch-Irishman,  216. 


Gall,  St.,  missionary  to  the  Germans,  129. 

Galloway,  Scotch-Irish  in,  219. 

Gallon,  Francis,  manual  compiled  by, 
188. 

Gardiner,  S.  R.,  348. 

General  education  and  special  educa- 
tion, 301-315. 

Germany,  universities  of,  156-157; 
settlers  from,  in  Pennsylvania,  409- 
410;  influences  which  are  steadying 
elements  in,  416. 

Gibbon,  Edward,  345. 

Glacier  Park,  Montana,  398. 

Gladstone,  William,  197. 

Grammar,  use  of,  as  a  study,  321. 

Grand  Cafion  of  the  Colorado,  397- 
398. 

Great  Britain,  classes  of  legal  enactments 
in,  77  ff. 

Great  men,  value  of,  as  national  posses- 
sions, 203-204. 

Greek,  the  study  of,  319,  320,  321, 
323,  324  ff. 

Green,  J.  R.,  historical  style  of,  352- 
353- 

Green  Mountain  Boys,  the,  271-272. 

Green  Mountains,  forest  preserves  in 
the,  402. 

Guicciardini,  historical  style  of,  351. 

Guizot,  French  historian,  347. 

H 

Hague  Court,  the,  250. 
Hallam,  Henry,  345. 
Hamilton,  Alexander,  411. 


430 


INDEX 


Hampden,  John,  4. 

Heidelberg  University,  founding  of,  154. 

Henry,  Patrick,  215. 

Herodotus,  an  originator  of  historical 
composition,  343-344- 

History,  intellectual  enjoyment  from 
study  of,  26;  risk  of  too  close  atten- 
tion to  dry  details  and  exact  methods 
in,  30;  address  on  Architecture  and, 
181  fi. ;  architecture  the  interpreter 
of,  187;  specialization  in  study  of, 
305-306;  wherein  lies  the  profit  of 
knowledge  of,  320;  literature  the 
best  source  of  knowledge  of,  320-330; 
the  classical  age  of  Greece  and  Rome 
as  an  introduction  to,  330—331 ;  ad- 
dress on  the  Writing  and  Teaching 
of,  339  ff. ;  present  zeal  for,  contrasted 
with  earlier  lack  of  interest  at  uni- 
versities, 341—342 ;  importance  of 
study  of  ecclesiastical,  342-343 ;  the 
scientific  treatment  of,  343  ff. ;  He- 
rodotus and  Thucydides  models  for 
writers  of,  334;  so-called  literary 
school  of  writers  of,  344-346 ;  scientific 
school  of  writers  represented  by 
Niebuhr,  Guizot,  Ranke,  etc.,  346- 
349;  causes  leading  to  scientific 
handling  of,  348-349;  dryness  of  the 
modern  scientific  writers  of,  349- 
350;  examples  of  mingled  literary 
and  scientific  treatment  of,  352-353 ; 
scientific  school  of,  represented  by 
Buckle  and  Herbert  Spencer,  354- 
359;  qualities  demanded  for  the 
highest  kind  of  work  in,  363-364. 

Hudson,  Henry,  268,  273. 


Imagination,  necessity  of,  in  writing  of 
history,  364;  cultivation  of,  by  read- 
ing fiction  and  poetry,  376-377. 

Independence  of  mind  in  reading,  386- 
387- 

India,  American  missions  in,  135. 

Individual,  rights  of  the,  under  the 
Common  Law,  45-46. 

Initiative,  the,  115. 

Iowa,  State  University  of,  address  to, 
281  ff. 

Ireland,  tribute  to  great  men  originating 
in,  173,  222-223;  proposal  to  settle 
Dutch  in,  208;  recent  improvements 
effected  in,  223-224. 


Jackson,  Andrew,  215. 

Jamestown    Island,    address    delivered 

at,  i  ff. 
Japan,  relations  of,  with  United  States, 

258. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  8 ;  address  on,  107  ff . 
Jentryns,  Sir  Henry,  88. 
Johns  Hopkins  University,  address  at, 

299  ff. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  221. 
Jokes  in  public  speaking,  290-291. 
Jonson,  Ben,  3. 
Judgment,  freedom  of,  in  reading,  386- 

387. 
Jury,  the,  as  a  feature  of  the  Common 

Law,  60—62. 


Kelvin,  Lord,  a  Scotch-Irishman,  220- 

221. 

Kennedy,  Lord  Justice,  71. 
Kidd,  Captain,  215. 
Knowledge,  joy  in,  a  gift  of  university 

life,  1 68. 


Lake  Mohonk  Conference  address,  247  ff . 

La  Salle,  8,  269,  270,  271. 

Latin,  the  study  of  classical,  319  ff. ; 
loss  from  reading  literature  in  trans- 
lations, 334-337- 

Law,  interrelation  of  liberty  and,  14; 
appreciation  of  value  of,  by  Pilgrim 
Fathers,  38-39;  drawbacks  to  the 
study  of,  1 86.  See  Common  Law. 

Lawrence,  Sir  Henry,  220. 

Lea,  Henry  C.,  305,  352,  361. 

Lee,  Robert  E.,  n. 

Legality,  spirit  of,  in  England,  due  to 
influence  of  the  Common  Law,  68- 
69. 

Legislation,  address  on  Conditions  and 
Methods  of,  73  ff. 

Liberty,  inseparability  of  law  and,  14. 

Lincoln,  Saint-Gaudens'  statue  of,  177; 
address  on  the  Character  and  Career 
of,  195  ff. ;  universal  admiration  and 
honour  of,  in  America,  224-225. 

Lingard,  John,  351,  361. 

Liquor  traffic,  evils  of,  among  barbarous 
peoples,  141. 


INDEX 


431 


Literary  historians,  school  of,  344-346. 

Literary  ornament  in  public  speaking, 
289-290. 

Literature,  instruction  in,  compared 
with  instruction  in  science  as  to  results 
in  later  life,  20  ff . ;  the  mental  stimu- 
lus and  pleasure  of  poetry,  27-28; 
effect  of  training  in,  on  true  appre- 
ciation of  art,  28-29;  dangers  of  too 
close  attention  to  technicalities  of, 
29-30 ;  the  best  source  of  a  knowledge 
of  history,  320-330- 

Livingstone,  David,  132. 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  as  a  public  speaker,  291. 

Lucretius  cited,  129. 

M 

Macaulay,  as  a  historical  writer,  352; 
rapidity  as  a  reader,  385. 

Magellan,  spirit  which  actuated,  in 
explorations,  8,  269. 

Magna  Charta,  56. 

Maitland,  F.  W.,  348. 

Marshall,  Chief  Justice,  n;  a  Scotch- 
Irishman,  215. 

Mason,  George,  8. 

Mayflower  compact,  38-39. 

Michaelis,  J.  D.,  347. 

Milton,  John,  4. 

Missions,  address  on,  125  ff. ;  work  of, 
begun  by  the  Apostles,  129;  as  car- 
ried on  by  Charlemagne  and  later 
conquering  forces,  129-130;  later 
propagation  of  Christianity  by  peace- 
ful methods,  130;  the  fourth  or  pres- 
ent-day stage  of,  130—132 ;  work  of 
American  and  British,  134-136 ;  causes 
of  comparatively  slow  progress  of 
modern,  136  ff . ;  desirability  of  com- 
plete separation  from  political  sup- 
port, 144-145;  the  present  a  critical 
moment  for,  146-150;  objects  to  be 
aimed  at  by,  150. 

Mommsen,  Theodor,  348,  362. 

Moore,  Thomas,  as  a  historian,  345. 

Morris,  William,  191. 

Motley,  John  Lothrop,  345. 

Muratori,  rank  of,  as  a  historical  writer, 


344- 


N 


National  Parks,  address  on,  389  ff. 
Natural  history,  enjoyment  to  be  de- 
rived from  pursuit  of,  23-24 


Natural  sciences,  dangers  of  too  great 
specialization  hi  study  of,  306  ff.,  326; 
influence  of.  on  the  writing  of  history, 
348. 

Nature,  appreciation  of  pleasures  of, 
to  be  derived  from  literary  training, 
28. 

Negroes,  first  African,  imported  into 
America,  7. 

New  South  Wales,  national  parks  in, 
398. 

Newspapers,  responsibility  of,  for  ill- 
feeling  between  nations,  255-256. 

New  York  City,  magnificence  of  archi- 
tectural enterprises  in,  194,  197. 

New  York  State  Bar  Association  address, 
73  ff- 

New  Zealand,  national  park  in,  398. 

Niagara  Falls,  deterioration  in  scenery 
of,  396. 

Niebuhr,  German  historian,  347. 

Notes,  use  of,  in  public  speaking,  294. 

Novel  reading,  374-377. 


Oral  evidence,  practice  of  using,  under 
English  Common  Law,  62,  67. 

Orders  in  Council,  English,  78. 

Ornament,  literary,  in  public  speaking, 
280-290. 

Oxford  University,  early  instruction 
in  Roman  law  at,  66;  the  beginnings 
of,  153-154;  chief  aims  and  purposes 
of,  157-160. 


Parkman,  Francis,  348,  352. 

Parliamentary  draftsman,  office  of, 
87-88. 

Parliamentary  legislation,  English  sys- 
tem of,  76  ff. 

Patrick,  St.,  129. 

Pennsylvania  Society  of  New  York, 
address  to  the,  407  ff . 

Pennsylvania  Station,  New  York,  archi- 
tecture of,  194. 

Perigueux,  restoration  of  cathedral 
church  of,  100. 

Philosophy,  intellectual  pleasures  and 
enjoyment  from  study  of,  26. 

Pilgrims,  address  on  the  Landing  of 
the,  33  ff. ;  motive  of,  in  settling  in 


432 


INDEX 


America,  36-37;  effect  of  character 
of,  on  State  they  helped  to  found, 
37-38 ;  comparison  of  ancient  Romans 
and,  38;  value  of  law  recognized  by, 
38—39;  effect  of  traditions  and  mem- 
ory of  high  thoughts  bequeathed  by, 
30-40. 

Pitt,  William,  284. 

Poetry,  as  a  source  of  mental  stimulus 
and  pleasure,  27-28;  the  reading  of, 
374;  cultivation  of  the  imagination 
by,  376-377;  choice  of,  for  reading, 
377- 

Pollock,  Sir  Frederick,  71. 

Portland,  Me.,  address,  41  ff. 

Prague,  University  of,  founding  of,  154. 

Precedent,  weight  of,  in  judicial  decisions 
under  the  Common  Law,  48-49. 

Precision,  principle  of,  in  the  Common 
Law,  47-49. 

Presbyterian  system  of  church  govern- 
ment, formation  of  republican  spirit 
in  America  by,  214-215. 

Priestley,  Joseph,  346. 

Private  acts,  British,  77,  81  ff. ;  in 
France,  95. 

Provincetown,  Mass.,  address,  33  ff. 

Psychology  as  a  field  for  intellectual 
enjoyment,  26-27. 

Public  Speaking,  Some  Hints  on,  281  ff. 

Public  spirit,  effects  of  intellectual 
training  upon,  122. 

Pym,  John,  4. 

Q 

Quakers,  among  the  early  settlers  of 
Pennsylvania,  409-410. 

R 

Rainier,  Mount,  397. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  4. 

Ranke,  L.  von,  348,  362. 

Reading,  address  on  Some  Hints  on, 
365  ff. ;  choosing  the  best  in,  368- 
369;  dryness  no  sign  of  excellence  in 
books  for,  360-370;  question  of  ex- 
tent of  field  to  be  covered  in,  371— 
374;  of  fiction,  374-376;  of  poetry, 
376-377 ;  of  classics  of  other  countries, 

•  378;  purpose  and  concentration  in, 
378-380;  methods  to  be  followed  in, 
381-383;  system  in,  383-385;  de- 
sirability of  swiftness  in,  385-386 ; 
independence  of  mind  in,  386-387. 


Referendum,  the,  115. 

Restoration  of  churches  in  England  and 
France,  189-191. 

Robertson,  J.  C.,  historian,  345. 

Roman  law,  characteristics  of  English 
Common  Law  originating  in,  67. 

Romans,  character  of  the  ancient,  com- 
pared with  that  of  Pilgrim  Fathers, 
38. 

Root,  Elihu,  261. 

Russell,  Sir  Charles,  a  Scotch-Irishman, 
220. 

Rutgers  College  address,  365  ff. 


Saint-Gaudens,    Augustus,   address    on 

the  Art  of,  171  ff. 
San  Francisco  Bay,  praise  of,  230. 
Scenery,  of  Vermont,  276-279;  conserva- 
tion of  American,  by  creating  national 

parks,  394  ff. 

Schiller,  as  a  historian,  345. 
Science,  far-reaching  effects  of  modern, 

17-18;   comparison  of  instruction  in, 

and  of  instruction  in  literature  as  to 

intellectual   enjoyment   in   later   life, 

20  ff. 
Sciences,    specialization    in    study    of, 

306  ff. 

Scotch-Irish,    as    settlers    in    Pennsyl- 
vania, 410. 
Scotland,    universities    of,     155,     160; 

exclusion  of  the  public  from  the  best 

scenery  of,  394. 
Scoto-Irish     Race     in    Ulster    and    in 

America,  address  on,  205  ff. 
Sculpture,  consideration  of  the  art  of, 

174-176. 

Seeley,  Professor,  350. 
Shakespeare,  3 ;     enjoyment  derived  by, 

from  his  fellow-men,  25. 
Shaw  Memorial,  Boston,  177-178. 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  4. 
Slavery,  beginnings  of  negro,  in  America, 

7 ;    view  taken  of,  by  the  Common 

Law,  50-60. 
Slave   trade,    as   a   retarding   force   to 

progress  of  Christianity,  143. 
Sorrow,  Saint-Gaudens'  statue  of,  177. 
Spanish    adventurers    contrasted    with 

English,  9. 
Specialization  in  university   education, 

302  ff. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  358,  359. 


INDEX 


433 


Spenser,  Edmund,  4;  the  reading  of, 
374- 

Spinoza,  340. 

Spoils  system  in  American  national 
government,  422—423. 

State  Universities,  address  on  the  Mis- 
sion of,  151  ff.  See  Universities. 

Statute  law,  British,  85  ff . 

Statutory  Rules  and  Orders,  English, 
78,  79- 

Stubbs,  William,  348. 

Switzerland,  legislative  method  in,  95 ; 
cooperation  of  legislative  and  execu- 
tive branches  of  government  in,  410- 
420;  influence  of  American  Constitu- 
tion on  latest  constitution  of,  424. 


Tacoma,  Mount,  397. 

Tariff  legislation,  97. 

Teachers  in  schools,  importance  of  in- 
fluence exercised  by,  242—243. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  197. 

Thorwaldsen,  the  work  of,  175. 

Thucydides,  a  master  of  historical  com- 
position, 344;  critically  exact  spirit 
shown  by,  349;  historical  style  of, 
353- 

Tocqueville,  quoted,  105. 

Torture,  use  of,  forbidden  by  the  Com- 
mon Law,  62,  63. 

Translations,  question  of  use  of,  in 
studying  ancient  literature,  334-336. 

Truth,  devotion  to,  to  be  instilled  by  a 
university  education,  122-123,  168. 

Tyranny,  the  Common  Law  a  safe- 
guard against,  46-47;  Thomas  Jef- 
ferson's views  of,  113-114. 

U 

Ulster,  the  Scotch-Irish  of,  217-220. 

Union  College,  address  at,  339  ff. 

Universities,  address  on  the  Mission 
of  State,  151  ff. ;  origins  of  the  earliest, 
153-155;  consideration  of  German, 
English,  and  Scottish,  156-160;  char- 
acteristics of  American,  160—161 ; 
founding  and  supporting  of,  by  state 
governments,  161-163;  risks  to  state- 
controlled,  of  curbing  of  freedom 
and  of  favouring  branches  from  which 
pecuniary  gain  may  be  expected,  163- 
166;  the  great  benefits  to  be  derived 
from,  167-168;  ways  for  graduates 


to  repay  their  debt  to,  168-169; 
address  on  "  What  a  University  may 
Do  for  a  State,"  227  ff . ;  opportunities 
open  to,  for  State  service,,  239  ff . ; 
promotion  of  athletics  at  expense  of 
intellectual  excellence  in,  240-242 ; 
influence  exercised  by  alumni  of, 
in  forming  public  opinion,  242 ; 
function  of  demonstrating  the  wealth 
in  life  besides  mere  material  things, 
243 ;  address  on  Special  and  General 
Education  in,  299  ff. ;  specialization 
in  studies  at,  303  ff . 

University  education,  effects  of,  on  men 
as  regards  politics,  public  spirit,  and 
devotion  to  truth,  116-123. 

University  instruction  and  intellectual 
pleasures,  15  ff. 


Vacarius,   Lombard  instructor  of  law, 

66. 
Vermont,    the    founders    of,    271-272; 

resources   of,   in   its   people   and   its 

scenery,  275-276. 
Virgil,  quoted,  22. 
Virginia,  address  on  the  Beginnings  of, 

i  ff. 
Virginia,  University  of,  address  at,  107 

ff. ;    Jefferson's  aims  and  motives  hi 

founding,  HI. 
Virginia  Company  in  London,  9,  10. 

W 

Washington,  George,  109,  203,  411. 

Water  power,  utilization  of,  to  detri- 
ment of  scenery,  396. 

Watt,  James,  17. 

White  Mountains,  creation  of  forest 
reserves  in  the,  402-403. 

Williams,  Roger,  37. 

Wilson,  James,  411-412. 

Wisconsin,  University  of,  Commence- 
ment Address  to,  151  ff. 

Witherspoon,  John,  214. 

Wolf,  F.  A.,  Prolegomena  to  Homer  of, 
346. 

Wordsworth,  William,  29,  197. 


Yellowstone  National  Park,  397. 
Yosemite  Park,  397 ;    exclusion  of  auto- 
mobiles from,  398-399. 


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